6/1/22 - Two Holland Area Businesses Will Expand & Add Jobs

The Governor announced that two area businesses will expand and that means they'll need to employ more workers.

(MiBiz -Jayson Bussa) - Two newly announced business expansions in Holland are poised to generate $87.7 million in private investment and bring 138 new jobs to the area.

State officials announced expansion plans for Holland-based Coastal Container Corp. and Hudsonville Creamery and Ice Cream Company LLC.

Hudsonville Creamery, which manufactures ice cream for its own brand as well as other national and regional brands, plans to invest $65.7 million in a multi-phase expansion at its Holland facility. The expansion will open up capacity for its growth in the novelty ice cream space and is expected to bring 76 new jobs to the company, which currently employs 172 people in Michigan.

The investment includes the construction of additional manufacturing space in addition to renovating its existing facilities. The company, which received a $1 million Michigan Business Development Program performance-based grant, will also invest in new machinery and equipment and build a new wastewater treatment plant.

Hudsonville Creamery has been expanding at a steady clip in recent years. In the summer of 2020, the company announced it had broken ground on a $35 million project that added a new cold storage hub to its Holland headquarters. Construction of that additional 156,466 square feet wrapped up last Spring.

Also in 2020, the company launched a $9.8 million expansion to add a 40,000-square-foot dry goods warehouse.

“Hudsonville Ice Cream’s commitment to West Michigan is a great example of the continued strength of West Michigan’s agribusiness industry, and to see Coastal Container continue to thrive is exciting,” Jennifer Owens, president of economic development organization Lakeshore Advantage Corp., said in a statement. “We applaud both companies on their continued success.”

Coastal Container — which serves the agricultural, automotive, e-commerce and food and beverage industries with packaging supplies — plans to tack on 65,000 square feet of additional manufacturing space to its existing Holland facility. The company also plans to invest in new equipment as demand surges from consumer spending shifting to e-commerce because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a total expansion that will require roughly $22 million in private investment, Coastal Container also plans to install a secondary railway line to deliver raw materials to its facility, a measure that the company estimates will eliminate the consumption of more than 150,000 gallons of diesel fuel a year that would have been expended delivering the materials by truck.

The expansion and operational enhancements are expected to create 62 jobs for the company. Coastal Container currently employs 94 people at its Holland facility.

“Our family has been in the corrugated business for 60 years now,” Coastal Container CEO Brent Patterson said in an announcement. “In these past couple of years, Coastal Container has seen tremendous growth, which allows us to make this expansion to better serve our customers and community.”

Gov. Grechen Whitmer touted the latest announcements as signs that the statewide economy is trending in a positive direction.

“With 4.3 percent unemployment, strong small business growth, and rising wages, our economy is on the move, and I will stay focused on the fundamentals that matter most to working families and communities while ensuring Michigan leads the way in key industries like manufacturing and agribusiness,” she said. “I will keep fighting to bring more jobs and investment to Michigan and work with anyone to grow our economy.”