Yorkville set to produce more Skittles
More than 137 million Skittles candies are made every day in the United States, according to candymaker Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co.
About 57 million of those are made in Yorkville, enough to stretch from the north to the south borders of Illinois, said plant manager Brian Pardo.
And that is likely to increase, especially since Wrigley, a subsidiary of Mars Inc., on Tuesday will unveil its new production line for making more Skittles. The company also hired more than 75 new workers to do the job, increasing its overall workforce to 400.
Chicago-based Wrigley invested about $50 million by adding about 145,000 square feet and received about $3 million in state and local incentives for the Yorkville project.
Candy made in Yorkville will be sold nationwide, as well as in Canada, Mexico, Central South America and Caribbean markets.
“Skittles is on a nice trend right now with growth,” Pardo said. “And in a few years, we could expand further.”
In 2014, the company announced the expansion after receiving a tax incentive package from the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.
The plant has been in Yorkville for about 20 years and also manufactures other well-known brands such as Juicy Fruit, Doublemint and Life Savers.
The new production line for Skittles provides the same consistent recipe, color and packaging as other manufacturing plants, including its Waco, Texas, plant, he said.
Yorkville offers three factory levels or floors, where employees receive the raw ingredients, mix them in a kitchen, form the Skittles shape, add a colored shell, polish the shell, and then add the “S” to the outside of the shell, he said.
The five Skittles colors are mixed in each package, which are then shipped to distribution centers, including one in Bolingbrook, Pardo said.
Besides Yorkville, Mars has been expanding for a lot of candy lovers. It has opened a new Mars chocolate factory in Topeka, Kansas; expanded its factory in Albany, Georgia; opened a new Mars innovation center in Thompson's Station, Tennessee; built a new Mars drinks campus in Westchester, New York; and more elsewhere, the company said.