Ferrero North America announced its second major expansion in twelve months on Monday, June 13.
They will be investing $214 million to expand their chocolate processing plant in Bloomington.
The new plant will produce Kinder Bueno chocolate bars in a new 169 thousand square foot addition. This is on top of last October’s announcement of the construction of a $75 million, 70 thousand square foot facility that is now underway.
“Just months after Ferrero broke ground on its first ever U.S. chocolate processing facility in Illinois, the establishment of the Kinder Bueno production line is a testament to Illinois’ talented work force and reputation on the global stage, said Governor JB Pritzker. “We thank Ferrero for its vote of confidence in Illinois and for bringing more opportunity and jobs to the Bloomington-Normal region.”
The current Ferrero facility is 226 thousand square feet. The company now has 7o thousand under construction and another 169, thousand planned. The end result will be 465 thousand square feet of facilities.
With $75 million in improvements under construction and $214 million planned that’s $289 million of improvements.
The facility under construction will produce Crunch, 100Grand, Raisinets and other products. Ferrero bought the rights to produce Crunch bars in the United States from Nestle in 2018.
The planned facility will manufacture Kinder Bueno products. Kinder Bueno is a chocolate covered wafer filled with a hazelnut cream.
Hugh McMullen, Director of Communications for Fererro, described Kinder Bueno as, “a very unique kind of chocolate bar. You’ve got wafers, hazelnut cream covered in milk chocolate and then drizzled with dark chocolate. If you look at it it’s very delicious but it’s also complicated, right, not the same thing as a Crunch bar, right? There’s a lot of elements so that’s why this new facility is going to be so important and so sophisticated.”
Kinder (Pronounced as in kindergarten) means children in German and Bueno means good. In English that would translate to Good Children.
Construction on the planned facility is expected to begin this summer. The facility now under construction is expected to open next year. It will be the first chocolate processing facility Ferrero has outside of Europe. The planned facility is projected to open in 2024. This will mark the first time Kinder Bueno has been manufactured in North America.
When the facility under construction opens it will create 50 new jobs. The additional facility announced today is expected to employ 200 people. It is probable that when these jobs are filled Ferrero will become one of the top ten employers in McLean County.
“We’re excited to see our relationship with Ferrero North America continue to grow, along with the company’s footprint here in Bloomington,” said Mayor Mboka Mwilambwe. “Increasing the Ferrero labor force with our homegrown talent truly shows the company’s commitment to central Illinois.”
State Representative Dan Brady credited the state’s enterprise zone with helping make this expansion possible. Patrick Hoban, CEO of the Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council, referenced the zone as well. Hoban says this helped us locate the expansion in the U.S. as opposed to it being in Canada or Mexico. Among other benefits developers in the zone do not have to pay state sales taxes on building materials.
The enterprise zone is gerrymandered along streets and railroads connecting certain pieces of property that local and state politicians think should be included in it. The zone connects Bloomington Normal in McLean County with Gibson City in Ford County. It has its supporters and opponents.
I don’t know if anyone is any happier about this expansion than Bloomington City Council member Donna Boelen who lives in the neighborhood. She says she gets to smell chocolate. Sounds like a Ferrero plant is outside of the norm in that regard. Apparently people do want a chocolate plant in their backyard. Who wouldn’t want to live in a neighbor hood that smells like chocolate?
