Arkansas has offered incentive packages to two manufacturing facilities in the state that will help create almost 350 jobs, said Grant Tennille, director of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.
The state awarded $2.2 million in incentives to Ozark Mountain Poultry in Batesville for a new processing line, Tennille said. The funds will help with an expansion at the plant that will create 225 new jobs.
Hanesbrands Inc., which makes women's hosiery, was awarded $400,000 to expand a plant in Clarksville and hire about 120 workers, Tennille told commissioners at a meeting Thursday in Little Rock. Both incentives were awarded as part of the federal Community Development Block Grants program.
Ozark Mountain Poultry, based in Rogers, will use the $2.2 million to build a second processing line and a new feed mill, said Ed Fryar, chief executive officer of the firm.
Work is already underway on a feed mill, which is being built in Magness, about 12 miles southeast of Batesville, Fryar said.
Work hasn't begun on the processing line, Fryar said.
"Before we can go to another [processing] line, we have to build the feed mill," Fryar said. "The feed mill we have now doesn't have the capacity to serve two lines."
Ozark Mountain Poultry's Batesville plant currently is shipping whole chickens to the company's operations in Northwest Arkansas, where they are deboned and shipped to customers across the country, Fryar said.
Fryar declined to disclose salary estimates for the 225 workers Ozark Mountain Poultry will hire.
The poultry industry is expanding rapidly, Tennille said.
"Everybody feels strongly that they are going to be able to sustain this growth for a number of years," Tennille said.
Hanesbrands is undergoing a $1.3 million capital expansion, said Travis Stephens, president of the Clarksville Regional Economic Development Organization.
The company will upgrade its equipment in Clarksville and resume production of some products that are being manufactured overseas, Stephens said.
"We're very excited about this in Clarksville," Stephens said. "It's probably our first major expansion since the 2008 economic downturn."
The average annual income for workers at the plant is below $30,000 a year, Stephens said.
Hanesbrands is one of the few places in Arkansas that still does cut-and-sew production, Tennille told the commission.
"[Hanesbrands] is growing, which is nice to see because garment manufacturing in the United States has been tough for years," Tennille said.
The Clarksville facility is the last American plant where Hanes makes pantyhose, Stephens said.
"They don't do as much cut-and-sew as they used to," Stephens said. "They also do a lot of dyeing of fabrics."
A call to a plant executive seeking comment was not returned.
Business on 01/10/2015