Mars Opens $450M Plant in Ohio

Mars Inc. has opened a $450 million manufacturing plant in Lewisburg, Ohio, for its Royal Canin pet well being model. It’s the firm’s largest dry pet meals manufacturing facility and the one largest funding in a Royal Canin website. The brand new 450,000-square-foot plant is a component of a bigger $6 billion funding in U.S.-based manufacturing by Mars over the previous 5 years.

The corporate is planning a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the website in the present day. The Preble County plant will create as much as 270 new full-time jobs over the following 5 years. It would produce sufficient dry pet meals to feed 4 million pets yearly. Mars officers mentioned the corporate plans to proceed to develop its potential to produce the home market.

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Mars, which acquired Royal Canin in 2001, introduced plans to construct the plant at 6569 SR-503 in 2021. The manufacturing facility is positioned on the identical website as Royal Canin’s Pet Well being and Diet Middle, certainly one of two world analysis and improvement facilities for the corporate. The pet analysis middle has been on the website since a minimum of 2014.

In March 2021, the Ohio Tax Credit score Authority authorised a 1.521 %, 10-year job creating tax credit score for the brand new venture, in keeping with the Dayton Every day Information. That was primarily based on the corporate’s plans on the time to create about 224 full-time jobs.

J.P. Nauseef, president & CEO of JobsOhio, the state’s personal nonprofit financial improvement group, welcomed the Royal Canin’s resolution to decide on Ohio for its manufacturing facility.

“We’re grateful for the shut collaboration with our state and native companions to draw Royal Canin to Preble County, guaranteeing Ohio performs a necessary position in bringing the corporate’s nutritious merchandise to pets which might be liked by households all through the North American market,” Nauseef mentioned in a press release supplied to Industrial Property Government.

Royal Canin enlargement

The brand new manufacturing facility has earned Silver LEED certification. It makes use of standardized methods and course of designs examined throughout Royal Canin amenities to duplicate the model’s exact vitamin. The positioning will be capable to manufacture the model’s complete regional dry kibble portfolio.

The Lewisburg location is the corporate’s sixth manufacturing facility throughout the U.S. and Canada. Mars additionally accomplished a $200 million enlargement of its Lebanon, Tenn., plant in 2022, including 108,000 sq. toes to the present facility and creating greater than 90 new jobs.

Mars, which is positioned in 49 states, employs greater than 70,000 individuals and operates 37 factories along with veterinary clinics, labs and 14 world and regional workplaces. Among the firm’s manufacturers embrace Snickers and M&M’s, nevertheless it additionally has an in depth pet vitamin portfolio. Pedigree, Whiskas, Sheba and Cesar are among the many different Mars pet meals manufacturers.