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Food Processing

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Many food processing companies have operations in Greater Hazleton, PA.Known as the "Snack Food Capital of the World," Pennsylvania includes major producers of pretzels, potato chips, confectioneries and chocolate. The Commonwealth’s snack food and confectionery industries generate more than $5.1 billion in annual sales. Pennsylvania is also the international headquarters for Hershey Foods Corporation and H. J. Heinz.

Greater Hazleton and Northeastern Pennsylvania are a prime example of how Pennsylvania has gotten this reputation as companies such as Archer Daniels Midland, Hershey Company, Bimbo Bakeries, Cargill Meat Solutions and Otis Spunkmeyer, among many others, all have processing facilities in the area.

Some facts about Northeast Pennsylvania’s food industry:

  • Mrs. T’s Pierogies produces enough full-size pierogies and mini pierogies each year to cover 764 football fields.
  • Michael Foods Egg Products processes 1 million eggs per hour. That’s 16 million eggs per day, or 5.8 billion eggs per year.
  • Cargill Meats processes enough meat annually at its Hazleton plant to make 2.5 billion hamburgers.
  • Stroehmann Bakeries LLC (Bimbo Bakeries) makes 240 million buns each year from its Hazleton plant.
  • 49 major food processing companies call our area home.
  • Over 7,800 people are employed in the local food processing industry.

 

Food Processing Employers in the Hazleton Area

Greater Hazleton has all of the special ingredients needed to make it an ideal location for the food processing industry... climate, air quality, fresh water, abudant workforce, rail service and highway access for ease of distribution. Just ask all these companies that manufacture or package food products in our industrial parks:

Company Service # of Employees
Cargill Meat Solutions Retail meat processing facility 700
The Hershey Company Molded chocolate products 355
Bimbo Bakeries Fresh baked goods (breads) 249
Citterio USA Corp Italian style meat products 240
Archer Daniels Midland Cocoa processing facility 200
Romark Logistics Northeast distributor of M&M / Mars candy products 106
Gonnella Frozen Products, LLC Manufacturer of dough for in-store bakeries 101
Bimbo Bakeries Bakery food products (cakes) 99
US Cold Storage Refrigerated storage and distribution services to the food industry 87
Otis Spunkmeyer Frozen bakery products 86
Tootsie Roll Industries Northeast distributor of Tootsie Roll products 10

 Download the Food Processing Companies


 

Workforce

Employers report satisfactory-to-good availability of a variety of skills needed by the transportation sector. They also rate the level of basic skills as seen among job applicants as acceptable in four criteria - reading comprehension, verbal communication/comprehension and team and cooperative skills.

A study performed by the Joint Urban Studies Center assessed a variety of questions on labor and performance, employer wages and benefits and ability to recruit workers from other areas. The study reported the following strengths for the area:

  • 57.1% of companies report that people moving here are “somewhat at ease”
  • 71% say local work ethic is good to excellent
  • 86% say productivity is good to excellent
  • 95% say willingness to work overtime is good to excellent
  • 66% say punctuality is good to excellent
  • 95% say overall employee relationships are good to excellent
  • Low absenteeism

 

 

Testimonials

A leading provider of plastic foodservice and custom thermoformed packaging solutions, Fabri-Kal is proud to have celebrated its 60th anniversary in the packaging industry. We have operated Fabri-Kal’s Hazleton plant for 42 years and have found the productivity of the workforce to be above average and reflective of a strong work ethic. Contributing to our success in Hazleton is our close proximity to major interstates and ability to recruit from a diverse population in an area where the cost of living is reasonable.”
- Roland Yarbrough, Plant Manager Fabri-Kal Corporation

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