Open Omaha offers a rare look inside Conagra kitchens, other venues this weekend (2024)

The aroma of hot buttered popcorn will be wafting through the hallways when the doors to 707 Conagra Drive open to the public for the first time this weekend.

The familiar smell will emanate from Conagra’s Orville Redenbacher and Angie’s BoomChickaPop products, of course.

Step farther inside, past big display cases of Dolly Parton products, and the smell of baking cupcakes will draw you through the Imagination Room and into a large area where chefs create more than 100 products every year for the Fortune 500 company.

“The heartbeat of Conagra is in this building,” said Lisa Ellis, manager of internal communications.

The giant food company is opening its downtown Omaha research and development kitchen and bakery Saturday and Sunday for Open Omaha.

It’s one of 75 organizations that will be offering tours of their spaces, many of which aren’t ordinarily open to the public.

Attendees can enjoy behind-the-scenes tours of Charles Schwab Field or the Davis Global Center at UNMC, a facility for innovative medical procedures and research (Saturday only). Or they can just take advantage of a free visit to Lauritzen Gardens and Joslyn Castle.

It’s the third year for the event, which totaled more than 6,000 venue visits in its debut and 15,000 last summer.

“As we’re entering year three, we’re really excited about how the event has grown,” said Maria Brady, director of strategic partnerships for Omaha By Design, creator of the open house event. “We’re very eager to see how the impact is, not only for the venues but for our attendees.”

Conagra’s riverfront campus is in one of nine Open Omaha clusters, with the Omaha Police Department’s mounted patrol barn and the nearby Breakers Apartments.

Each cluster of organizations is grouped together so that visitors can walk, bike or ride the bus to the next location. Metro Transit will be free and Heartland Bike Share $1 during the event, which runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. Access to either bus or bike requires a code.

Omaha By Design was thrilled when Conagra said yes to becoming a part of the open house.

“Not too many people get to come into this space,” said Tom Frain, senior director of research and development and head chef.

Frain has been working in the Conagra kitchen in Omaha for nearly 10 years. Filled with ovens, grills, smokers and other cooking equipment, it’s where all the company’s recipes start, he said.

The first step is a simple taste test, in which a chef makes an item just like it would be done at home or in a restaurant (Frain joked that he never needs to bring lunch to work). An accepted dish goes through several revisions before it’s perfected and is moved on to the next step in production.

It might take a year to work on something a million people will eat, Frain said.

Visitors this weekend will also be able to visit the bakery and food photography area. They’ll see where Conagra personnel create the heating directions you find on the back of a package.

The chefs also create hundreds of recipes a year using Conagra products.

“We draw a lot of inspiration from restaurants, and the Omaha food scene is a great inspiration,” Frain said.

Visitors are encouraged to take a selfie with the Chef Boyardee statue outside the building.

Staff members were spiffing up the property this week, including the kitchen. The company that Frain said basically feeds America wants to look its best for its first visitors.

“It’s a great opportunity to show people who we are and what we do,” Frain said.