New Line Will Add Jobs At Windsor
New Line Will Add Jobs At Windsor
By David Howell
Editor
OAKLAND– News of a long anticipated announcement for another expansion at Ajinomoto Windsor Foods in Oakland has surfaced in a pair of supervisor meetings this month. The 20 million dollar expansion will generate almost 60 new jobs.
Yalobusha County Economic Development and Tourism District Director Bob Tyler reported at the Sept. 8 county meeting that the Oakland plant had been selected by Ajinomoto Windsor for the addition, winning out over nine other plants owned by the company.
“Our Oakland plant won that and it’s about 54 jobs,” Tyler told supervisors. The addition will bring the total work force at the plant up to almost 400 jobs.
“I am convinced the thing that won the competition for our plant was local support,” Tyler added, pointing to ongoing county support for the plant.
As part of work on the expansion, North Central Planning and Development District representative Chris Pope shuffled paperwork needing authorization from supervisors to apply for a $200,000 Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) grant and a $500,000 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) from the Mississippi Develop-ment Authority for the Windsor expansion.
“It is going to be used to install that new rice production line,” Pope explained about the grant at the county’s second meeting of the month on Sept. 14.
The county will be required to match 10 percent of the CDBG grant and ARC grant, however Pope explained the county’s portion for the two grants can overlap putting the county’s total investment at $50,000. Supervisors agreed to tap the county’s industrial operations fund for the $50,000, money that is generated by the sell of water to Windsor from the county-owned water system adjacent to the industry.
“The total project is $20,881,000,” Pope also reported.
“That $50,000 investment is not much,” Vaughn added.
“It’s going to create over 50 jobs,” Pope said.
“Less than a $1,000 a job, that’s not bad,” District 3 Supervisor Lee McMinn said.
Windsor is also applying for a third grant in connection with the project, a $100,000 ACE grant.
In other economic development news, Tyler reported an open house is scheduled at Blauer Manufacturing, Inc.’s new building in Coffeeville. Tyler said the date has not been set, but the out-of-state owners will attend the event.
“They have just about completed their retail store that will be in the front of the building and are working on their storage, inventory and distribution center,” Tyler also reported.
In May, the company signed a 20-year lease purchase deal with the county to purchase a county-owned, 86,600 square-feet building, located on County Road 436 in Coffeeville. The building formerly housed Avery Outdoors. Blauer makes uniforms for law enforcement, fire/EMS and military communities in the U.S. It also offers a wide variety of shirts, pants, mid-layers, base-layers, safety vests, caps, jackets, accessories and footwear.
At an earlier meeting, Tyler said the company is doing maintenance on the building, including roof repair, work in the men’s and women’s bathrooms and HVAC work.
