Pennington Seed Inc., the world's largest packager of grass seed and a subsidiary of Central Garden & Pet Company (NASDAQ: CENT), today unveiled a new packaging and production warehouse that more than doubles seed storage and delivery capabilities at company headquarters in Madison, Ga. The 41,000 sq. ft. building increases annual production of Pennington's wildflower seed varieties, wild game products and southern warm season turfgrasses by approximately 15 percent.

The state-of-the-art facility increases storage of all cool season grass seed varieties and enables Pennington to greatly increase the amount of top-quality seed produced each day with upgrades like bulk seed handling and custom blending equipment. Hydraulic rail siding helps trim the overall shipping time dramatically, enabling product loading onto trains inside the warehouse and delivering directly to Pennington distributors. Seed was previously trucked to Madison for blending and packaging before being shipped to distributors nationwide.

"The new warehouse improves Pennington's ability to produce, store and deliver our signature line of products," notes Tony Harper, vice president of Pennington's seed production division. "Increased storage space enables us to process orders more efficiently, and the on-site railway system will mean less time spent in-transit. Retail distributors don't want to store our products until they need them - they want to receive our products when they need them. The facility accelerates door-to-door product delivery to wholesalers and dealers."

With added storage and freight outlets, Pennington will also look to aggressively expand its export business by shipping a large volume of seed to worldwide markets. International trade between U.S. seed companies and companies in Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand has increased significantly over the past five years.

The Georgia warehouse is Pennington's second major facility addition in the past year. The company's Lebanon, Oregon, division unveiled a packaging and distribution warehouse of similar proportions in September 1998 to meet the growing demands of the retail turfgrass market. The combination of the Oregon and Georgia warehouses and Seed West Inc., the Arizona-based subsidiary that houses the world's premiere bermudagrass cleaning, processing and packaging plant, gives Pennington the industry's greatest capacity for blending and packaging turfgrass seed.

Pennington and the entire seed industry have experienced remarkable growth in the commercial usage of bermudagrass, tall fescue, bluegrass and perennial ryegrass seed, which has increased over the last quarter century. In 1998, Pennington produced in excess of 100 million pounds of turfgrass seed - about 10 percent of the worldwide industry's 1 billion pounds harvested annually.
"The overall market for turfgrass seed has been very strong over the last two years, and we fully expect demand to continue to rise, as golf course and recreational area development continues at a record pace," Harper comments. "Growing demand for quality seed is also coming from the landscape management market, as homeowners are taking more and more pride in their lawns and gardens."

Founded in 1945 by Brooks Pennington Sr., Pennington Seed is today owned by Central Garden & Pet Company. A leading manufacturer and distributor of lawn, garden, turf care, forage grasses, wild game and bird seed products, Pennington is also the largest packager of grass seed in the world. Central Garden & Pet reported 1998 revenues of more than $1.29 billion, with more than 3,900 employees and thousands of dealers nationwide.

Company news release
N2059