New plant coming to Versailles to create more than 300 jobs

A baking company expected to create more than 300 jobs will be coming to Versailles.

More Than a Bakery LLC announced plans Thursday to build a new plant on 100 acres in Versailles. The company will make cookies, snack crackers and specialty gourment crackers for national distribution.

The company plans to build on 100-plus acres on Big Sink Pike, across the road from the Versailles post office, Mayor Brian Traugott said.

“This is a big step toward diversifying our economy,” Traugott said. “It will certainly attract employees from neighboring counties.”

The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority gave preliminary approval to an incentive package for the plant during a meeting Thursday in Frankfort. The state agreed to a total of $8.7 million in tax incentives, to be spread over 10 years. The company estimated its investment cost at $57.1 million.

This would be the first new plant in Versailles since Nisshin Automotive Tubing came to the city in 2005. That company makes tubing for automotive exhaust systems.

More Than a Bakery’s decision to move to Versailles is the culmination of a three-year search process, the company said in a news release. Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee also were considered for the plant.

Versailles was chosen because of available land, the proximity to raw materials and transportation needs, and the incentive package, said Brandon Talbert, a site consultant who assisted in the selection process.

Construction of the plant is targeted to begin this summer, with manufacturing likely to start at the end of 2017, the company said in a news release.

The plant will initially employ 168 people, but that will increase to 310 in four years. The average hourly wage will be $22 an hour, according to the tax incentive plan.

More Than a Bakery is affiliated with Richmond Baking, which bills itself as the oldest family-owned cookie and cracker bakery in the United States. Richmond Baking has plants in Richmond, Ind., and Alma, Ga.

“The company has needed this kind of additional space for some time now,” Bill Quigg, president of Richmond Baking, said in the news release. “The Richmond plant is bursting at the seams and isn’t easily adapted for current production methods, and the Georgia facility has had 200 percent growth in two years.”

Of the 100 acres at the Big Sink Pike site, about 40 acres are already zoned for industrial use, but an additional 60 acres will have to be rezoned for that use, Traugott said.

News of the new Versailles plant comes on the heels of the Feb. 16 groundbreaking for a new auto-parts plant in Midway, also in Woodford County.

American Howa Kentucky, a manufacturer of interior products for the automotive industry, will create 54 full-time jobs through an investment of more than $13.1 million.

That plant will be in a 60,000-square-foot building in Midway Station industrial park off Interstate 64. The plant will be a supplier for the Toyota Camry, which is made in Scott County.

Unemployment in Woodford County in December, the latest month available, was 3.5 percent, the lowest in the state.

This story was originally published February 25, 2016 at 2:37 PM with the headline "New plant coming to Versailles to create more than 300 jobs."