Pactiv LLC is spending more than $24 million on an expansion project in North Carolina that will create 59 new jobs.
While certain details of the project are still under wraps, a Pactiv company official did indicate that the project is plastics food packaging related, in an interview with Plastics News.
Reggie Goldsmith is senior director of operations integration at Pactiv and said the expansion at the company's current manufacturing site in Kinston is part of a product launch for one of his company's customers.
“I can't go into exact details only because it's with a strategic customer of ours. It involves some intellectual properties we're working on with them that have not been made public yet,” Goldsmith said.
“It's an effort to provide them with a product they need for servicing their customer. It is a food packaging type of application,” he said.
More details will come through Pactiv's customer at a later date, he said.
“We are already under way with the expansion. So to give you a sense of timing, it will be some time this year,” Goldsmith said. “As far as the new jobs created, that will happen this year as well.”
About 260 employees currently work at the Kinston facility.
News of the expansion was revealed by the state, which indicated the new jobs will include operators, technicians and mechanics. The total average annual payroll will be about $1.8 million for the new positions.
“The expansions of companies like Pactiv are vital to growing North Carolina's economy,” state Commerce Secretary John Skvarla III said in a statement. “The best job growth starts at home with our existing employers.”
Pactiv CEO John McGrath, in a statement, said the company was “confident that North Carolina” was the right place for the growth.
Goldsmith, as part of his job, explores the potential for incentives for projects such as this. He also is on the company team that ultimately decides which location to select.
The Kinston project is receiving a $150,000 grant from the One North Carolina Fund. That fund provides financial assistance to attract business projects to stimulate the economy and create jobs in the state.
It was less than two years ago, in July 2013, that Pactiv also announced plans to expand in both Kinston and Mooresville, N.C., and create 77 new jobs through an investment of more than $9 million. The company received a grant of up to $103,000 from the One North Carolina Fund then.
