Profile: Industries continue to build, expand new and current facilities

Benjamin Bullard, The Cullman Times, Ala.
·2 min read

Mar. 25—Cullman has become a perennial name on national lists that rate America's most business-friendly small cities, and for 2022, things didn't change: In newly released rankings made available this month, industry advocate Site Selection Magazine rated Cullman third (tied with Sidney, Ohio) on its annual list of the top micropolitan cities in the United States.

That recognition marks Cullman's ninth consecutive year to make the magazine's top 10, though the city moved up in 2022 from its fourth place ranking in 2021. Micropolitans are defined by the publication as cities with populations of between 10,000 and 50,000, and the magazine considered 543 such places across the country in compiling this year's list.

Final figures covering local industry for all of 2022 will be available soon, but late last year, economic officials signaled that the Cullman area was tracking toward record-breaking capital investment numbers to exceed those of 2021 — itself a record-setting year.

By far the largest single local industrial announcement of 2022 came in April, when Tyson revealed it would spend $208 million to build a new poultry processing facility near Hanceville; a reinvestment in Cullman County aimed at replacing the company's River Valley Ingredients facility that burned the preceding summer. Rebuilding in Cullman County is expected to retain 125 local jobs, with the company having sourced its local employees to other facilities until construction of the new Hanceville-area plant is finished.

While the new year is still young, local industries already are showing signs of further entrenching their operations in Cullman County, tapping the area's accommodating municipal governments and aggressively-cultivated workforce. A yet-unnamed industrial tenant in the City of Cullman is set to spend an estimated $66 million to expand its current facilities, with details of the project — including the name of the company — expected to be announced soon. Vinemont-based industry ProBin Global, a provider of bulk packaging solutions for beef, poultry, and other animal proteins destined for the dining table, also is planning a $2.5 million, 45,000 square-foot expansion set to almost double its current facility footprint.

Those early-year announcements follow similar string of expansion projects either underway or completed since last year, highlighted by the $50 million construction of a new manufacturing plant — a project estimated to create 130 local jobs over the next few years — for Reliance Worldwide Corporation (RWC). The corporate parent of Cash Acme, which has long maintained a manufacturing presence in Cullman, RWC produces push-to-connect plumbing fittings under the SharkBite brand name at its new Cullman facility.