Schwan's Company, a U.S.-based food company and subsidiary of South Korea-based CJ Foods, announced plans to further invest in South Dakota with the purchase of a 142-acre site at Foundation Park for a 700,000 square-foot Asian-style food production facility.
Initially, the company announced plans in 2021 for the new plant in Sioux Falls, which is projected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars and add more than 600 new employees. Now, in addition, the company is announcing plans to open a regional office in downtown Sioux Falls to support its continued expansion and operations at the new manufacturing facility. Initial plans for the regional office will add 50 high-paying jobs, with the potential to grow up to 100 jobs once the production facility is complete.
The new manufacturing facility will produce Asian-style foods, primarily for Schwan's Korean food brand bibigo, using state-of-the-art automated production lines. Once complete, people working at the facility will focus on making a broad range of Asian-style meals, sides, snacks and appetizers in the shelf-stable and frozen categories.
The new manufacturing campus will also include a warehouse and distribution center, shipping and receiving docks, and office space.
The company has also worked with the state of South Dakota and city of Sioux Falls to design a state-of-the-art wastewater treatment facility that will be built by Schwan's Company on the new manufacturing site. The wastewater treatment facility will enable the company to discharge water to the city with the least amount of impact on the city's current operations.
"We thank all state and local officials in South Dakota for helping us make great progress on this project, which will ultimately help us meet the needs of our retail and food service customers," says Schwan's outgoing CEO Dimitrios P. Smyrnios. "This project will create significant new production capacity for Schwan's, enabling us to continue to support our market-share leading bibigo brand and drive future innovation and growth in the Asian food category."
Incoming Schwan's CEO Brian Schiegg agrees: "Our investment in this world-class Asian-style food plant in South Dakota will help us strengthen our position in one of the fastest growing food categories in the United States. We look forward to continuing our work with state and local officials to build a facility that will benefit the residents of South Dakota as well as our family of businesses," he says.
