Dive Brief:
- Morinaga America Foods is investing $136 million to build a second Hi-Chew candy factory at its Mebane, North Carolina site, parent company Morinaga & Co. announced on July 16.
- The project will create 204 jobs in total, 40 of which will be in production, quality assurance, maintenance and support staff roles with an average yearly salary of $67,075, Gov. Roy Cooper stated in a release.
- Construction on the 132,633-square-foot plant is expected to begin in October and be complete in June 2026. Production is anticipated to begin in 2027.
Dive Insight:
The Mebane expansion will enable the Japan-based company to meet rising demand for Hi-Chew products in the U.S., according to Morinaga’s news release.
The company established subsidiary Morinaga America Foods in 2013 and opened the Mebane plant — its first in North America — in 2015. Since it opened, the facility has produced over two billion pieces of Hi-Chew a year, according to a July 18 release.
Hi-Chew’s U.S. sales have grown 20% year over year since fiscal year 2018. In FY2023, which ended on March 31, sales reached approximately 19 billion yen ($125.4 million).
Non-chocolate candy represents 32% of all U.S. confectionery dollar sales and growth is outpacing that of all other segments, the trade group the National Confectioners Association reported in 2022.
Morinaga plans to capitalize on the growing segment as it aims to accelerate its Hi-Chew brand presence in the U.S., according to the release.
“With this tremendous brand growth year over year, we are eager to maximize our production output to continue providing new, innovative HI-CHEW products to consumers and brand fans nationwide,” Teruhiro Kawabe, Morinaga America president and CEO, said in a statement.
Japan accounts for nearly half of North Carolina’s foreign direct investment over the past decade, according to the governor’s release. Other recent project investments include Toyota, Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, Dai Nippon Printing and Kyowa Kirin.
