ST. PETERSBURG, FLA. —Lantmännen Unibake USA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Denmark-based Lantmännen Unibake, has completed the first phase of its expansion in St. Petersburg, including the 7,500-square-foot renovation of a storage building across the street from its bakery, according to the Tampa Bay Business Journal.

With the expansion the building now has a bakery research and development center, a welcome and reception area for customers and offices.

“It is quite an expansion for us,” Scott Rosenberg, Lantmännen’s U.S. marketing director, told the Tampa Bay Business Journal. “The R.&D. lab is significantly larger than the small one we’ve had in the bakery. Now we have a comfortable place to meet with customers and collaborate. We can bake bread and do education with them.”

The St. Petersburg bakery, which operates three production lines, makes all Lantmannen’s European-style artisan bread for large customers in the United States and Canada, he said.

Mr. Rosenberg told the Tampa Bay Business Journal that the second phase of the company’s $1 million renovation project will expand the bakery’s footprint to provide space for new personnel hygiene equipment and employee locker rooms.

Owned by Swedish farmers through the Lantmännen group, Lantmännen Unibake operates 24 bakeries in 18 countries.

The company’s brand portfolio consists of: Hatting, Schulstad, Schulstad Bake Off, Schulstad Royal Danish Pastry, Pastridor, Korvbrödsbagarn, Paaskebrod and Skoga.