Niagara Bottling in Middleburg is expanding and bringing more jobs to Clay County. The $70 million, 550,000 square foot facility opened in March. Construction has already begun to expand the facility to over 820,000 square feet.
There are between 55 to 75 people employed with the facility. Early estimates show that when the plant is fully operational, there will be close to 100 employees, according to Laura Pavlus, with Clay Economic Development Corporation. The plant uses high-tech operations, which means most of the positions are in engineering. Robots do the heavy lifting.
The EDC has seven major industry projects underway including Niagara Bottling, Mobro Marine, Chemours, Borland Groover, and FPL among others. These new industries are expected to bring 544 new jobs to the county.
Crawford Powell with the Clay County Economic Development Corporation recently provided a quarterly update for commissioners. Clay County has a labor force of 112,308 with 5,031 employers. The county has a 2.2% unemployment rate, compared to 2.5% for the state and 3.4% for the country. The average estimated wage in Clay County is $50,400, and the average estimated wage for public sector jobs is $47,432.
Niagara Bottling LLC is a family-owned company. The company bottles water, sparkling water, tea, sports drinks and vitamin-enhanced water. It was established in 1963 in California. Niagara has more than 30 locations nationwide, including Groveland and Jupiter, Florida.
Niagara Bottling LLC did not respond for comment at the time this article was published. To learn more about jobs at Niagara, go to https://careers.niagarawater.com/us/en
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