PepsiCo, Inc. will invest $180 million to construct a manufacturing and distribution facility in Pryor, Okla. at MidAmerica Industrial Park and create 280 jobs. The company will produce Gatorade Thirst Quencher, the world’s number one sports drink, and Propel Fitness Water, the number one enhanced water on the market.
The building, packaging, processing, and warehousing operations will cost approximately 180 million dollars to build. Gatorade estimates that this facility will have a five to seven billion dollar impact on the economy over the first 10 years of operation.
The facility will service the six to eight state area in the South Central Region. The plant will ultimately employ 280 people and hiring for some positions will take place as early as January 2007.
“We are pleased to award Oklahoma as the site of our newest plant,” said Chuck Maniscalco, president, The Gatorade Co. “Pryor is a wonderful community and an important transportation hub in the South Central Region. We weighed many economic, community, environmental and resource factors in our final decision, and we are happy to call Oklahoma home to our ninth manufacturing and distribution facility.”
“With the ever-increasing demand for Gatorade and Propel, our business continues to grow at staggering rates,” said Jim Lynch, senior vice president of supply chain, QTG (Quaker-Tropicana-Gatorade). “The need for a ninth distribution and manufacturing facility is a testament to that growth and we are excited to partner with the state of Oklahoma to realize that.”
Gatorade was looking at several locations for the new facility and Oklahoma was a late entry into the process. Oklahoma had only two days to prepare a proposal to convince Gatorade officials that Oklahoma was the right spot for their next location.
The new facility will be built on a fast-track construction timeline with the intent to be operational in September 2007. The new Gatorade plant will be located on 165 acres on Highway 69A at MidAmerica, west of the existing Covalence (formerly Tyco) plastics plant. The development will have a collective size of approximately 1.5 million square-feet which will include a 400,000 square-foot production facility and a 1.1 million square-foot warehouse / distribution center.
MidAmerica Industrial Park is a 9,000-acre manufacturing, processing and distribution center located south of Pryor, Okla. Founded in 1960, the park now has a 365-acre regional business airport with a 5,000-foot runway, and owns the wastewater and water treatment plants.
The nation’s largest rural industrial park, MidAmerica is owned and operated as a self-sustaining public trust established to enhance economic development and job creation efforts in Northeast Oklahoma. Over 75 firms are located within the park including divisions of eight “Fortune 500,” 10 “Global 500,” and 17 publicly traded companies.
Go to STATE SPOTLIGHTS to read more about other news and articles about this state.
Go to INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHTS to read more about other news and articles about this industry sector.
Means the article is accessible only to our magazine subscribers.
