New development continues to move at a steady clip in Alamance County, as well as the eastern part of Mebane that sits just over the Orange County line.
The Greensboro-based Samet Corporation appears to have completed construction of a 150,000-square foot plant at the North Carolina Industrial Center off Third Street in Mebane that will serve as the first U.S. manufacturing plant for Lotus Bakeries, maker of Biscoff cookies, a popular treat that had long been famous in Europe before being introduced to U.S. airline passengers in the 1980s.
The Belgian-headquartered Lotus Bakeries has estimated that 60 new jobs will be created at the Mebane plant.
In an interview with The Alamance News, Lotus Bakeries CEO Jan Boone said following a groundbreaking ceremony in the spring of 2017 that his company had chosen Mebane for its first U.S. facility because of its location in a major logistics hub; a strong workforce in Alamance County and surrounding areas; and because of the “great enthusiasm” that city and county government officials had shown for the company’s expansion plans.
The facility is located across from Ferraro Foods along Park Center Drive in the North Carolina Industrial Center off Third Street in Mebane.
Mebane’s city council and Alamance County’s commissioners had agreed in 2016 to provide Lotus bakeries with incentives when the company selected Mebane for its first U.S. production facility. In exchange, Lotus pledged to build a factory with a tax value of $55.3 million and create the 60 new jobs, with an average estimated salary of $35,931. In September 2018, Mebane’s city council agreed to provide another $261,000 in incentives, while the commissioners approved a parallel request for $262,000 in incentives around the same time. Lotus requested the second round of incentives in 2018 to fund construction of a $17.4 million expansion of the facility at the North Carolina Industrial Center in Mebane, even before the first phase of construction was completed. A representative for Lotus Bakeries said at the time that the expansion would eventually bring the total tax value of the plant and equipment to $72.7 million.
