SUNBURY — Two businesses at the former Sunbury Textile Mill facility received a combined $2.3 million in state grants on Friday.

State Sen. John R. Gordner, R-27, and state Rep. Lynda Schlegel Culver, R-108, presented checks to the owners of the expanding Fresh Roasted Coffee and incoming Sivana Converting at the 57-acre site, formerly owned by Glen Raven Custom Fabrics LLC, along the Walnut Street extension. Fresh Roasted Coffee received $1.5 million while Sivana Converting received $800,000 from the Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program (RACP).

“This is a great day for residents of the Sunbury area,” said Schlegel Culver. “Life-sustaining jobs will be coming to support many local families.”

The former textile facility closed in August 2020, leaving 110 employees without jobs. The owners donated the facility in December 2020 to DRIVE (Driving Real Innovation for a Vibrant Economy), an economic development council serving Northumberland, Union, Snyder, Montour and Columbia counties. The facility had been operating in Sunbury for 66 years.

Fresh Roasted Coffee was founded in 2009. Owner Andy Oakes recently purchased and relocated the business into a 60,000-square-foot section of the former textile mills. Sivana Converting LLC CEO Soheil Shahrooz purchased the remaining 350,000-square-foot section and plans to open later this summer.

The grant for Fresh Roasted Coffee, which opened in the new location in 2021, will be used to help expand the business. The funds will be used to help purchase a new single-serve coffee pod production machine, which will increase production from 50 to 300 pods per minute. This will lead to 20 new jobs created over the next three years and will allow the company to produce either hard Keurig-type cups or new K-Cup compatible compostable cups.

The $3.2 million machine is 130 feet long and 40 feet wide, and will make 150,000 K-cups per eight-hour shift. It will cost approximately $120,000 to ship the machine, said Oakes.

"Once that piece of machinery is operational, it will probably take 30 or 40 people just to run it each shift," said Oakes. "It makes us able to manufacture for grocery store chains. It will expand our operations, continue and reach out, and touch the world from Sunbury."

The grant for Sivana Converting will be used to renovate and upgrade the former Sunbury Textile Mill to create modern manufacturing space and offices. Sivana is the first producer of hemp-based biodegradable plastic food containers.

The first machines will be arriving at the facility in June or July. The first phase will bring in more than 100 jobs. Once the second phase is complete, it will be around 350 jobs, Shahrooz said.

"I'm shooting for, if everything goes well, starting to hire in June," he said.

Fresh Roasted Coffee will be utilizing some of Sivana’s hemp-based products to produce and market biodegradable single-serve coffee pods.

“I want to congratulate both Fresh Roasted Coffee and Sivana Converting for their successful applications and fantastic projects,” said Gordner. “This type of cutting-edge partnership can change the landscape of local manufacturing.”

The state legislators were joined by city and county leaders; Jennifer Wakeman, the executive director of DRIVE; and employees of the companies.

RACP is a commonwealth grant program administered by the Office of the Budget for the acquisition and construction of regional economic, cultural, civic, recreational, and historical improvement projects. RACP projects are authorized in the Redevelopment Assistance section of a Capital Budget Itemization Act, have a regional or multi-jurisdictional impact, and generate substantial increases or maintain current levels of employment, tax revenues, or other measures of economic activity. RACP projects are state-funded projects that cannot obtain primary funding under other state programs.

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