ARCO Design/Build has named Brian Shoop as Director of Process Engineering for its Food & Beverage business, a hire that positions the national design-build firm to offer beverage and food manufacturers a single, accountable partner from process design through facility construction. The move signals a deliberate push by ARCO up the food and beverage supply chain, from the cold storage and warehouse distribution projects that built its national reputation into the processing and production facilities where beverages and packaged goods are actually made.
Shoop arrives from Gray, where he served as Vice President leading that firm's Process Engineering practice. His 16-year career spans facility and process design, asset lifecycle management, equipment longevity, and contamination prevention — all critical competencies for beverage manufacturers operating under tightening food safety regulations and compressed speed-to-market timelines. His specialization in extending equipment life and protecting structural integrity throughout a plant's operating life directly addresses one of the sector's persistent capital challenges: aging infrastructure that erodes throughput and increases maintenance costs.
Why the Hire Matters
For beverage manufacturers — whether they're scaling a co-pack arrangement, breaking ground on a greenfield production facility, or retrofitting an existing plant to add SKUs — separating process engineering from construction typically adds cost, time, and accountability gaps. Aaron Weir, President of ARCO Design/Build, framed the hire in those terms: "At ARCO, that expertise lives under the same roof as the team that builds the plant, which means our clients get a single accountable partner and a smoother path from concept to production."
The integrated model has particular relevance for beverage manufacturers managing tight retail commitments and capacity milestones. As Shoop put it: "Behind every facility is a product launch, a retail commitment, a customer counting on capacity coming online. ARCO's delivery model is engineered for speed, and by putting process design inside that same model, we can take clients from concept to production faster than the traditional approach allows." That speed advantage carries real commercial weight in categories like ready-to-drink beverages and better-for-you functional drinks, where first-mover shelf placement and distributor attention are won or lost on launch timing. For coverage of how facility investment is reshaping beverage manufacturing capacity, the category remains one of the most active in industrial construction.
Industry Platform
Shoop is scheduled to appear at the International Association for Food Protection Annual Meeting, running July 26–29, 2026, in New Orleans. He will participate in a roundtable panel titled "Asset Lifecycle Management in Food Manufacturing: Engineering Principles for Equipment and Facility Longevity," which examines how manufacturers can determine optimal equipment and facility lifespans while maintaining food safety standards — a topic with direct implications for beverage processors running high-speed filling lines, pasteurization systems, and cold-chain infrastructure.
ARCO's expansion into food and beverage manufacturing is a logical extension of more than 30 years building cold storage and warehouse distribution facilities — the downstream infrastructure that stores and moves finished goods through the three-tier and retail supply chain. By adding process engineering leadership, the firm can now compete for upstream work: the breweries, bottling plants, aseptic lines, and RTD production facilities that feed that distribution network. For beverage operators evaluating capital projects, the consolidation of design and build under one contract represents a meaningful shift in how facility supply-chain investment is structured and de-risked.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
