Maid-Rite Specialty Foods, Inc., a manufacturer of ready-to-heat meals, was awarded a $451,000 Pennsylvania First Program grant to expand its manufacturing operation in Dunmore, Pennsylvania. The expansion will create 75 new jobs over the next three years and retain all 301 existing employees. The award will also include a $150,000 WEDnetPA workforce development grant to train new workers.
Facilities in other states owned by Maid-Rite’s parent company, Premium Brands Holding Corporation, were in competition for the expansion but the funding proposal offered by the Shapiro Administration helped Pennsylvania secure this project and its jobs for Lackawanna County — Maid-Rite’s home for the past 60 years. Premium Brands will invest $40 million into this expansion.
Maid-Rite recently began construction on the first phase of the expansion project, which will convert warehouse space for food production. The second phase will construct additional cold storage at the Dunmore site. Maid-Rite suffered the total loss of a nearby processing facility due to a fire in 2021 and was able to retain all those employees at the existing project location. This expansion will recover most of the capacity lost in the blaze.
“The budget the Governor signed into law included a $13 million increase to the Pennsylvania First Program to make Pennsylvania more competitive, and we are thrilled to put those funds to work to assist in retaining and growing Maid-Rite, a business with deep roots in the Commonwealth,” said Rick Siger, Secretary of the Department of Community and Economic Development.
Source: pennwatch.org
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