VALDOSTA, Ga. (AP) — A Mexican bakery will be turning out more bread in south Georgia, announcing a larger bakery to go with a smaller one that it’s already building.
Mexico City-based Grupo Bimbo said Friday that it will spend $200 million on a new bakery in Valdosta and hire 295 workers.
The company originally announced a $25 million bakery projected to hire 76 workers in 2021. That bakery is under construction and will start operating in December, said Andrea Schruijer, executive director of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Development Authority.
The project announced Friday will begin work in December in the same industrial park and is expected to open in December 2025.
The first bakery will make sandwich buns for restaurants across the Southeast. It’s unclear what the bakery announced Friday will make.
Schruijer told the Valdosta Daily Times that workers’ wages will start between $19 and $25 an hour.
The company will get an undisclosed amount of job training assistance from the state. Schruijer said local officials approved a 12-year graduated property tax break. She said she was unable to give a specific value for how much the city and county were forgoing in taxes.
Grupo Bimbo will also qualify for a Georgia tax credit allowing it to annually deduct $3,500 per job from state income taxes, up to $5.2 million over five years, as long as workers make at least $31,300 a year. If Grupo Bimbo doesn’t owe that much income tax, it will be able to recover the rest of the credit from state income tax payments made by workers.
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