St. George firm plans U.S.'s first fully sustainable factory

Brice Wallace

A 140-job manufacturing and fulfillment project is coming to Beaver County and a company official promises it will be the first fully sustainable manufacturing facility in the United States.

St. George-based Blue Core Labs Inc. will invest $50 million on the project, which will use aquifer water to produce liquids — including clean water and nutritional products — to fill Tetra Pak paperboard containers that will be formed at the plant.

The 130,000-square-foot facility will be on about 72 acres near the junction of interstates 15 and 70 near the Sulfurdale geothermal plant. It will feature several sustainability elements, including using geothermal energy and 75-percent renewable packaging, reusing water and having a sustainable housing development nearby.

That will make it the nation’s first fully sustainable and 100 percent renewable-powered beverage manufacturing and warehousing operation, according to the company.

Dave Wheeler, the company’s COO and CSO, told the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity (Go Utah) board that the plant will have 5 megawatts of geothermal resource on the property. A generator on the resource will heat and provide electricity for the plant and provide enough power to put extra energy on the grid.

“We will be fully sustainable, not the first day but in our plan within the first three years to have that,” Wheeler said. “Everything we do, we first think about sustainability.”

Plant designer Steve Hellenschmidt said Tetra Pak, a Sweden-based company, will be “locked at the hip with us” as the key technology supplier. The $25 billion global packaging company developed a process to form a tube from a roll of plastic-coated paper sourced from renewable forests, fill it with a beverage and seal it below the level of the liquid. Hellenschmidt said caps on the containers are a type of plastic using sugar cane. He added that the use of single-serve packaging has grown substantially since the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

“The design is mainly complete,” he said of the plant, “but there’s some additional engineering that needs to be completed, but we’re well on our way at this point.”

Wheeler said that that plant site is “basically a perfect location for anybody who wants to build a manufacturing and distribution plant in the West.”

Beaver County Commission Chairman Mark Whitney said the company actually will use less water than the current farming operations there. Rick Anton, the company’s vice president of operations, said wastewater will be used on a farm adjacent to the plant.

The project is expected to generate new total wages of $26.5 million over five years and new state tax revenue of over $4 million during that time. The jobs are expected to pay an average of $45,339. The Go Utah board approved a rural tax credit incentive of about $2 million over five years for the project, in a Class 5 (based on population) county.

Water usage was a key discussion point during the Go Utah board meeting.

“Any development we incentivize here with these refundable [tax] credits are going to use water, I don’t care what it is, and we appreciate your thoughtfulness there,” Steve Neeleman, chairman of the board’s incentives committee, told the company officials.

“This has been in the works for a very long time,” Wheeler said. “We are aware of the drought that’s going on, but we also understand the importance of protecting our resource. I know there’s been some questions about the water, and we just want to assure you that we are very concerned about protecting and taking care of that by making sure that anything that we take and then discharge back into nature is completely clean and will allow us to continue forward for many years.”

Asked about housing for employees, Wheeler said GFE Sustainable Inc., with offices in Salt Lake City and New York City, has committed to using 80-100 acres for a sustainable housing community using geothermal power and aquifer water on the property.

“Believe me, we are so excited and we welcome Blue Core to Beaver County,” Whitney said, adding that the aquifer there is probably one of the most underused in the West. “The resource is plentiful for them there. It’s a great place for them to be. We’re just excited about the whole project and going forward with it and what it will do for not only the state of Utah but especially for Beaver County.”

“Where the placement is, is perfect,” added Beaver County Commissioner Tammy Pearson. “There’s plentiful water in that area, and it’s going to be a good project. We’re excited.”

“I can tell that in the evaluation of this company, we think it’s a very intriguing opportunity,” Neeleman said. “I think there’s very few companies that have proposed bringing $50 million of capex (capital expenditure) to a Class 5 county. In fact, I’m not sure that’s ever happened before.

“There’s been a lot of discussion about how much we’ve been clogging the Wasatch Front with cars and new construction and the challenges we have here, but I think that if we’re going to keep growing jobs in Utah, we need to look at all these opportunities, especially to grow out in rural Utah.”

In a statement read at the meeting, Gov. Spencer Cox backed the project. “This sounds like a huge deal for Beaver County, and we should be fully supportive,” it said.

The project also highlights Cox’s push for increased economic opportunity in rural Utah.

“In Utah, there has been a historical divide between our rural and urban areas,” said Dan Hemmert, Go Utah’s executive director. “We’ve seen unprecedented economic opportunities flow to the Wasatch Front, but we know those opportunities don’t always extend to our most rural communities.”

Hemmert said the project is the first rural tax credit incentive in a Class 5 county.

“Blue Core Labs is exactly the kind of company we want here in Utah,” he said. “In every decision, Blue Core Labs has demonstrated its commitment to Beaver County residents. Already, the company is working on plans to provide housing options in the community, along with helping local agriculture. Blue Core Labs also emphasizes environmental stewardship, packaging its water products in 75 percent renewable paperboard.”

“We’re thrilled that Blue Core Labs represents the first EDCUtah project to land in Beaver County, and in an Opportunity Zone, no less,” said Theresa A. Foxley, president and CEO of the Economic Development Corporation of Utah. “The company is committed to rural economic growth, and powering its manufacturing operations with sustainable geothermal energy. This is a win on so many fronts.”