Dive Brief:
- Meat snack maker Chomps plans to open a new manufacturing facility in Mexico, Missouri, in 2025, according to a Sept. 5 press release.
- The Chomps facility builds on the company’s long-standing partnership with meat snack contract manufacturer Western Smokehouse Partners.
- The 300,000-square-foot facility will be one of the Chomps brand’s largest manufacturing sites and is expected to create approximately 250 jobs initially employed by WSP, with potential for future expansion.
Dive Insight:
The facility will support Chomps’ rapid growth and allow the brand to meet increasing consumer demand for meat snacks, according to the release.
The meat snacks market was estimated at $9.7 million in 2023 and is expected to grow to $17.7 million by 2032, according to Polaris Market Research. Chomps generated $245 million in retail sales in 2023 and is set to bring in close to $500 million in sales over the next year, CNBC reported in March.
“The expanded manufacturing capabilities will ensure that Chomps can keep its products on shelves and expand to even more retail locations in 2025,” the company stated in the release.
As part of its manufacturing expansion plan, Chomps appointed Jason Dols as SVP of operations in March. Dols heads the development and implementation of long-term operations and supply chain strategies due to the company’s “unprecedented growth in the last two years,” the company’s co-founder and co-CEO, Rashid Ali said in the March 6 release.
Chomps and WSP started working together in 2016 with the opening of their first facility in Greentop, Missouri. The Mexico location will be the third facility at which WSP manufactures Chomps’ products and will be the first location dedicated exclusively to manufacturing Chomp’s products, according to the release.
In addition to the Greentop facility, WSP has four other manufacturing facilities in Iowa, Illinois and Idaho, according to its website. The Idaho facility is the most recent addition after WSP acquired jerky and meat stick maker Golden Valley Natural and its assets in May.
Other major meat snack makers are expanding their production. In 2022, Jack Links announced it is building a $450 million plant in Perry, Georgia, but the planned opening of 2023 was postponed until mid-2025.