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Cereal Ingredients, Inc. to build $24M facility north of KC area

The Leavenworth, Kan. company will extend operations across the state line with plans to construct a new manufacturing facility in St. Joseph, Mo. The expansion will mark the company’s first return to Missouri since uprooting its original KCMO headquarters in 2005. Cereal Ingredients will remain based in Leavenworth.

A Leavenworth-based specialty ingredients manufacturer has decided to build a new 80,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Missouri.

Founded in 1990 by CEO Robert Hatch, Cereal Ingredients Inc. moved from Kansas City to its current Leavenworth headquarters in 2005 and expanded there in 2015. Now, the employee-owned company plans to expand its operations in nearby St. Joseph.

According to a Thursday release from the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce, Cereal Ingredients will buy 8 acres in Eastowne Business Park, which is a 350-acre office and industrial development being developed by the chamber, the city, Buchanan County and several private investors. The St. Joseph site is about an hour north of Cereal Ingredients’ Leavenworth headquarters campus.

“We are excited to welcome Cereal Ingredients Inc. to the state of Missouri,” Gov. Mike Parson said in the release. “The company’s decision to invest and create new jobs in Missouri is a testament to the hard-working men and women who call our state home. We look forward to working together as Cereal Ingredients Inc. grows and succeeds.”

The company will invest an estimated $24 million into the building and equipment, creating at least 48 new jobs within three years of operations and at least 60 by year six. The facility is anticipated to be complete in the first quarter of 2022.