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 | 680 |
| 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 |
| Gonnella Frozen Products, LLC | Manufacturer of dough for in-store bakeries | 134 |
| US Cold Storage | Refrigerated storage and distribution services to the food industry | 123 |
| Otis Spunkmeyer | Frozen bakery products | 108 |
| Romark Logistics | Northeast distributor of M&M / Mars candy products | 106 |
| Bimbo Bakeries | Bakery food products (cakes) | 99 |
| 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
