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Manufacturing

Mouthfeel joins flavor as a food industry focus to satisfy consumers craving extra texture

By DEE-ANN DURBIN
Sep 14, 2026 8:06 am - The food and beverage industry is putting a bigger focus on texture when developing new products. Industry experts say the way a menu item or packaged snack feels in the mouth has become as big a draw as flavor to many consumers.
‘Dynamic’ new manufacturing/tech center triples ECC’s trade training space

By MIKE DANAHEY
Aug 31, 2026 8:51 am - Emily Ponce-Marquez’s final semester in Elgin Community College’s welding and fabrication program will be spent in the school’s newly opened $88 million Manufacturing and Technology Center.
Federal scholarship program can build the workforce suburban businesses need

By Matt Paprocki
Aug 31, 2026 7:18 am - Manufacturers in Elk Grove Village, construction firms in DuPage County and automotive shops throughout the suburbs share a common challenge: finding workers with the technical skills to fill available jobs.
Stellantis ups investment to $800 million at idled Belvidere plant to build new Jeep Cherokee in 2029

By ROBERT CHANNICK
Aug 17, 2026 3:43 pm - Stellantis announced Friday it is upping its investment in the idled Belvidere plant to $800 million, retooling it with its latest manufacturing platform to build the next generation Jeep Cherokee.
Illinois becomes first state in Great Lakes region to designate industrial plastic pellets as pollution

By MICHAEL HAWTHORNE
Aug 11, 2026 9:20 am - Illinois is requiring polluters to begin reporting spills of industrial plastic pellets known as nurdles, a growing source of contamination in the Great Lakes and Mississippi River watersheds. Companies that manufacture, use or transport nurdles also must develop plans to limit them in storm runoff, making the state the first in either watershed to officially designate bits of wasted plastic as pollution.
US faces new pressure to build weapons without China’s rare earth magnets

By DIDI TANG, JOSH FUNK and RODRIQUE NGOWI
Aug 03, 2026 8:17 am - A group of young scientists and entrepreneurs started a backyard lab in Boston in 2018 to find a cleaner metal-refining method. Now, they're at the forefront of efforts to reduce U.S. reliance on China for critical minerals used in weapons systems and high-tech products.
Vernon Hills toy manufacturer sues Trump administration again over new round of tariffs

By ROBERT CHANNICK
Jul 25, 2026 2:39 pm - Learning Resources, the Vernon Hills toymaker that successfully brought down the Trump administration’s 2025 tariffs in a seminal Supreme Court decision, is once again suing the federal government over the latest round of sweeping global tariffs.
Nvidia's Jensen Huang says society needs ‘new social norms’ in the age of AI

By JOSH BOAK
Jun 18, 2026 2:53 pm - Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang — whose work helped propel artificial intelligence — stressed in an Associated Press interview Tuesday that society needs to change with the advent of AI, arguing that a fuller embrace of the technology would improve people's lives.
$900k settlement wraps neighbors’ long fight with smelly Mount Prospect factory

By Steve Zalusky
May 12, 2026 8:31 am - A $900,000 settlement agreement has been reached between Prestige Feed Products and neighbors near the animal feed producer, which closed its Mount Prospect plant at the end of 2025.
Bill would give Illinois EPA greater oversight of manufacturers’ plastic pellet runoff

By GABRIEL MATIAS CASTILHO
Apr 21, 2026 10:56 am - A bill that cleared the Illinois House would give the state’s EPA emergency rulemaking powers to address plastic pellet spills and their effect on stormwater runoff. Plastic pellets are small round objects; the building blocks of plastic manufacturing, shipped from pre-production plastic manufacturers to production facilities then melted and molded into common plastic products. Unintentionally spilled pellets can end up in the state’s waterways when blown by the wind or carried by stormwater, potentially harming birds, turtles and fish.

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