PLYMOUTH – Plymouth will soon be home to a nearly 40-year-old pretzel and snack food maker.
The move comes after a tragic fire destroyed the company’s Pennsylvania facility in June. Following the blaze, the owners set an ambitious timeline…about nine months to get a new facility up and running, according to our partners at WNDU.
Now Pretzels, Inc. is on the fast track to moving in, in a few short months.
Aside from bringing pretzels to Plymouth, the move also brings the company closer to home. Pretzels, Inc. is headquartered in Bluffton, Ind. where its founders established roots in the late seventies.
They have since handed the business down to their sons who say Plymouth has provided them with the perfect opportunity for growth.
“Our owners were 100 percent, ‘we’re going to rebuild and come through this even better,’” said Scott Smith, CEO, Pretzels, Inc.
“They came to Plymouth and we welcomed them with open arms,” said Mayor Mark Senter.
Located at Pioneer Dr. and Commerce St., work is already underway, transforming the shell building to house a pretzel factory.
“We’re starting with one oven here, with room for two,” said Chip Mann, co-owner, Pretzels, Inc.
This location is slated to produce one of the company’s consumer favorites.
“One of the challenges for us was our site in Pennsylvania was the only place where we made our peanut-butter filled pretzels,” said Smith.
The production plant will create roughly 65 manufacturing jobs, in turn boosting Plymouth’s economy.
“The last business brought to Plymouth was about nine years ago,” said Jerry Chavez, president & CEO, Marshall County Economic Development Corporation.
Just across the street, INDOT’s new highway maintenance facility is going up, but that’s not all.
“We have the aquatic center that’s coming, as well at ‘The Zone’ sports center as well as the new soccer complex that’s coming. So we’re looking at maybe some hotels out here, so the whole west side, the Pioneer Drive area is going to be exploding in the next few years, and this is going to be a big part of that,” said Senter.
While the facility is now dominated by construction crews, come March, it will be ‘twisted’ into shape.
“The legacy that Bill Mann and Bill Huggins, my father and his partner have built and put into my hands and my partner Steve Huggins’ hands…it’s very important to us, we love it. It’s exciting and I look forward to coming back and seeing the continued growth,” said Mann.
Smith says 30 to 40 people will be hired out of the gate, with the company to expand its employee base in the next two to three years.
Pretzels, Inc. also utilizes a production plant at its Bluffton headquarters, where about 350 people are employed. In adding the jobs to be created from the Plymouth plant, Pretzels, Inc. will be employing more than 400 Hoosiers.
To learn more about Pretzels, Inc., click here.
