Zummit Plastics Inc., a stretch film maker, plans to create 50 new jobs as the company expands to the East Coast.
The company, with an existing manufacturing site in Phoenix, will spend $25 million on the new project, according to the Georgia Department of Economic Development.
Just last summer, Zummit expanded its Phoenix operations. Zummit, during discussion of that project, also indicated it also had purchased a building in Columbus, Ga., for an expansion that's now in the works.
"Zummit Plastics chose Georgia to accommodate our existing customers as well as new customers on the East Coast more efficiently," Penny Lucius, operations manager for Zummit Plastics, said.
The company cited the central location of Columbus and that community's quality of life as reasons for the decision to locate there, the state said. The area also provides future growth and employment opportunities.
Zummit began operations in 2018 in Phoenix with an emphasis on promoting a polyethylene stretch film the company claims is biodegradable.
The company's Bio-Zummit line of both hand wrap and machine film account for about 40 percent of sales, a company official said last summer. Conventional stretch film accounts for the remaining 60 percent. But Zummit expects biodegradable film will eventually take over full production.
Zummit claims its film will biodegrade under the right conditions in three to five years in a landfill setting. And that's important as companies look for different packaging options. Zummit uses the P-Life brand of additive to create its biodegradable films, the company has said.