-January 31,2020-
Expanding Hanford manufacturer is sold
TC Transcontinental Packaging, with a manufacturing plant in Hanford has recently expanded in the Hanford industrial Park.So says Kings EDC president Lance Lippincott. The flexible packaging company employs about 82 in Hanford making a variety of paper and woven poly-propane packages for a variety of industries.
Now the company has been sold.On January 20 the Canadian company announced that Hood Packaging Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hood Companies, Inc., acquired the paper packaging operations and buildings of TC Transcontinental including Transcontinental in Iowa, Hanford,California,Hazleton Pennsylvania, Tifton Georgia and the Spartanburg South Carolina plant.
TC Transcontinental is a leader in flexible packaging in North America, and Canada’s largest printer. The Corporation is also positioned as the leading Canadian French-language educational publishing group.
Hemp projects coming to the Valley
Hemp is a big topic at this year’s farm show with workshops to be held. In fact, hemp will get its own pavilion at the 53rd annual World Ag Expo in Tulare from Feb. 11-13.
Meanwhile several hemp companies are not waiting to make plans for both growing and processing the legal crop the has many uses.
A few hemp companies are looking site processing facilities in the Central Valley as planting season for the hemp crop approaches. Here are a few of them.
Titan Farms has leased a long vacant 80,000sf industrial building in Corcoran last used by Seward Luggage and plans to process hemp there says Steve Israel. Israel says the start-up company will employ around 40 at the plant and many more in the field.They are working with the City of Corcoran confirms the city manager.
Requesting to process hemp in Hanford is Valley-owned Greenbrier Holdings who is also opening 20,000sf cannabis manufacturing facility in Parlier it was announced last summer. Greenbrier Holdings operates 18 acres of greenhouse cultivation in partnership with Valley Crest and Ceres Farms in Santa Barbara.
In Huron a hemp company – General Agriculture, has leased a 24,000sf city owned building for a processing facility at 16485 9th Street.The business is said to employ 40 says mayor Rey Leon. Company representative Callaghan Becker did not return phone calls.
Western Milling building 4 mil-gallon fertilizer unit
Wester Milling based in Goshen is constructing two 2 million gallon tanks that will hold liquid fertilizer at their Hanford Industrial Park location. The tanks will be used to store UN-35 product shipped in by rail. To date the company had to buy the widely used farm fertilizer from ports.
Kings EDC ready to pitch High Speed Rail on maintenance facility site
Kings County EDC is ready to update their 2009 proposal to the California High Speed Rail Authority to site the long planed heavy maintenance facility (HMS) within the county.The proposed location is at Hwy 43 near Houston Avenue ,not far from the Tulare County line.”We will be releasing our updated offer in February “says EDC president Lance Lippencott.”We will able to offer more incentives”than the proposal 10 years ago, he says.
This past week Tulare County’s EDC board voted to support the Kings County location with EDC director Paul Saldana suggesting it could mean 300 jobs for the region.At its Jan. 22 meeting, the Tulare County Economic Development Corporation (EDC) board voted to support Kings County EDC’s proposal to locate a Heavy Maintenance Facility (HMF) for the bullet train near its station in Hanford.
In a related issue the City of Visalia recently backed a request from San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission to send a letter to the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) supporting the pursuit of a Merced-Fresno-Bakersfield operating segment including a Tulare-Kings station stop.
But now the Kings Council of Governments has tabled a motion to send a support letter as well.