Voyage Foods, a food innovation company founded in 2021, is opening a 284,000-square-foot facility in Mason, Ohio to manufacture its cocoa-free chocolate, nut-free spreads, and bean-free coffee. The manufacturing plant is expected to be operational by 2025 and will have the capacity to make 10,000 metric tons of cocoa-free chocolate annually once fully built.
After signing a deal in April with Cargill to become Voyage’s exclusive B2B global distributor for their nut-free spreads and cocoa-free chocolate, the new facility will help it deliver on new opportunities, particularly with CPG and foodservice companies.
“With this new facility, Voyage is maturing from a startup food technology company to a large-scale manufacturer with the ability to deliver value across the entire ecosystem to our people, partners, and the planet,” said Adam Maxwell, CEO and Founder of Voyage Foods. “We feel very lucky to establish roots in Mason and continue Voyage’s story here.”
Construction for the Mason facility has been funded partially from a guaranteed loan program by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the ballpark of $25 million. Voyage will maintain headquarters and a manufacturing site in Oakland, California.
Voyage products are made from inexpensive, widely available plant-based ingredients, many of which are upcycled from waste and side streams. The company’s Peanut-Free Roasted Seed Spread and Hazelnut-Free Roasted Seed Spread allergen-free formulations launched nationwide in Walmart. Maxwell, and VP of R&D and Founding Team Member, Kelsey Tenney, have applied their experience in food science to Voyage and focus on making products with wholesome ingredients that are sustainable by using less water and land than traditional counterparts. To date, Voyage Foods has raised more than $94 million from investors.
500 Million Dispensing Pumps To Be Produced At New APG Site
In northwest Ohio, APackaging Group (APG) has located its new manufacturing plant in the city of Defiance. The packaging manufacturer will produce up to 500 million plastic dispensing pumps for the health and beauty industries at the new location. With a $49 million investment, APG plans to bring 135 jobs to the operation.
Said John Allen, APG Vice President of Manufacturing, “We found here. Plus, logistically, we have U.S. 24 right near the facility and a rail spur backside, giving us a great asset in purchasing power for raw materials.”
Ohio has the fourth largest interstate highway system in the U.S., with nearly 7,000 lane miles on eight major routes. The state also has 10 large rail yards and 13 intermodal terminals, the second-highest number in the U.S. Ohio has the fourth most extensive network of operating railroads in the nation. The state’s 5,388 miles of active freight rail is No. 3 in the U.S. And, Ohio has four class one rail-based suppliers: CSX, Norfolk Southern, Canadian Pacific, and Canadian National.
With factories in Asia and contract facilitates in the U.S., APG offers quality products at fast production speed. The company chose to expand in southeast Ohio after a site search that sought a rural community with a strong labor force and community support.
APG will move into a new 80,000 square-foot spec building constructed by NAI Harmon Group, a leading commercial real estate and development company. The Harmon Group recognized an insufficiency of site products in the Northwest Ohio marketplace, a shortage that has led to missed opportunities for potentially attracting new business. JobsOhio shared this view and, last year, it unveiled a program to fill gaps in the state’s real estate inventory: The Ohio Site Inventory Program (OSIP). OSIP offers grants and low-interest loans to support speculative site and building development projects. Through OSIP, NAI Harmon received a $2.6 million loan and a $565,000 grant to assist in developing the spec building that will now house APG.
The APG project was assisted by JobsOhio, the Regional Growth Partnership, and the Ohio Department of Development.
