Target Industry Focus: Food & Beverage

Wise people will say that in any important endeavor to begin with the end in mind. That's why in economic development it is considered a best practice for a community to select and pursue a certain handful of targeted industries.

As I see it, determining a good target industry really comes down to answering three questions:

What does your community and region do well?

What industry does your community has the resources and additional capacity to serve?

Is there stable or growing opportunity for that industry?

Economic development planning efforts have consistently identified food & beverage as a great target industry for Dearborn County and Southeast Indiana, among other industries which we may reflect upon another time. See the?2020 Dearborn & Franklin Counties Regional Economic Development Plan,?SIRPC's 2020 Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy, and the?2023 I-74 Regional Agriculture Strategy.

On that first question it is pretty clear food and beverage manufacturers and businesses in that supply chain can succeed here. The Ross & Squibb Distillery in Lawrenceburg being a prime example since the 1800s. Proximo Distillers as well. Whitewater Mill and Brighton Mills in West Harrison. Kaiser Pickles near Aurora. Catalent's gummy manufacturing in Greendale. In the food & bev supply chain, Anchor Glass manufactures bottles for spirits. Precision Concepts manufactures plastic containers for beverages. Even employers near the end of the product life cycle such as Craig Distributing are thriving. We have an existing food & bev ecosystem here in Dearborn County, which is good news for our food producing farmers and ranchers. We're part of a larger food manufacturing landscape in Indiana and the Cincinnati region.?Site Selection Group recently tagged Indiana and Kentucky as top five states for food & bev manufacturing growth, stating "A variety of factors helped lead to these results – aligned workforces, utility availability, logistical advantages, strategic geographic positioning and site availability."

Pertaining to question two, those businesses thrive here for a variety of reasons. They enjoy more than ample water resources from the Ohio River, Whitewater River, and Brookville Lake. All those existing businesses and our region's educational institutions help generate relevant workforce skills. EMSI, a well-regarded economic data source, pins Agribusiness & Food Processing as a star cluster with a?location quotient?of better than 2.3, meaning that industry is over two times more prevalent here than the national average.

And on the third question, you'd have a difficult time finding a site selection consultant who would argue against food & bev project pursuits as this industry has for a while been growing steadily. Over the past five years, food & bev has experienced a 22 percent increase in gross output. The food & bev market is expected to grow 3.79 percent annually over the next five years. The industry provides 1.2 percent value add to the US GDP, outpaced only by chemical manufacturing's 1.9 percent. Turns out our growing national and global population enjoys eating! Those macro trends, it stands to reason, will generate more opportunities for success in One Dearborn's business attraction and expansion efforts.

As Dearborn County and SEI plan for success in economic development, lets continue to build our workforce, industrial site development, zoning policies, and marketing -- generally our communities -- to attract and serve the important and growing food & beverage industry.

(This piece was originally written and sent with the One Dearborn Investor Insider Newsletter on 2/26/2024)

Mike Perleberg

Executive Director