DeMet Candy Company

Southern Tier Economic Growth

Demet’s Candy Company, of Connecticut acquired the Turtle brand candy from Nestle in 2007, along with a manufacturing facility in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. The company, through a site consultant firm conducted a northeast search (NY, NJ, PA, CT, MA, etc.) to relocate the business into a more efficient and less costing food processing facility. The company selected a 17 acre parcel in the Airport Corporate Park (Build NOW NY), Big Flats , NY to construct a 100,000 sq.ft. facility. To date 250 new jobs have been created.

Project Need(s)
Besides suitable land with a good transportation network and access to labor, the project needed incentives as it was a highly competitive multi-state search

Project Solution
The Empire Zone program provided enough incentive to narrow the search to New York State locations. The Airport Corporate Park provided a shovel ready environmentally clean site for food processing. The Chemung County IDA provided land at below market rates and via PILOT Increment financing the community constructed infrastructure extensions and a new road. Turtle Circle to serve the plant. The NYS Office of Community Renewal provided a $ 750,000 grant to offset machinery costs