King’s Hawaiian to build baking plant in Indiana
LOS ANGELES — King’s Hawaiian has unveiled plans to invest nearly $200 million to build a new food manufacturing facility in Taylorsville, Ind.
Bartholomew County Commissioners approved a job creation and incentive agreement with Irresistible Foods Group, Inc., the parent company of King's Hawaiian on Dec. 4. The Indiana plant will join the company’s current footprint, including two manufacturing facilities in California and the largest facility, located near Atlanta.
Joe Leonardo, senior vice president of King’s Hawaiian, said the new facility will manufacture the brand’s core Hawaiian Sweet Rolls and potentially other products as innovation and capacity shift in the future.
“We are in the process of having a wonderful problem of being capacity-constrained here,” Mr. Leonardo said. “We started a site search two years ago, looking for the right communities to be in. Taylorsville, Ind., for many great reasons: the manufacturing-based community, infrastructure and community-related endeavors.”
Mr. Leonardo said King’s Hawaiian has purchased 88 acres with plans for a 300,000 square foot facility, to be built in phases.. He estimated the first phase would create 125 to 150 jobs.
“We’re looking at space for potentially a freezer on site, leaving room to design (additional elements) to staff the facility fully,” Mr. Leonardo said.
The county commissioners allocated $2.7 million from the county’s reserve funds for essential off-site infrastructure improvements. The agreement outlines the expected number of jobs, wage details and compliance requirements and is awaiting final approval from the executives of Irresistible Foods.
Mr. Leonardo said the parties are considering the remaining deal details and that he expected a formal announcement in January 2024. The groundbreaking for the King’s Hawaiian facility has not yet been scheduled.
He said the operation could begin as early as 2026 but that more details were forthcoming in the formal announcement of the project.