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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowA company that turns cornfield waste into sustainable products is planning a $29.5 million production plant in Rushville that would employ as many as 250 workers by the end of 2023.
The company, Cormo USA Inc., is a joint venture of Switzerland-based Cormo AG and Florida-based Sustainable Projects Group Inc. The new plant would process maize straw from as many as 150,000 acres of cornfields annually into a peat moss substitute for agriculture and foam products for material science uses.
The facility, expected to begin construction this summer, would be located on 10 acres in Commerce Park at Rushville, a 288-acre industrial park owned by the Rushville Redevelopment Commission.
Cormo USA plans to begin hiring for plant operations and management positions in the next three to four months, with additional positions added in logistics, scientific testing and marketing in 2020.
New positions are expected to offer average salaries 50 percent above the state’s average wage of $49,600 per year.
The Indiana Economic Development Corp. plans to offer Cormo USA up to $3.5 million in conditional tax credits based on the firm’s job creation plans. The incentives are performance-based, meaning they cannot be claimed until workers are hired.
City officials in Rushville are considering additional incentives, according to the IEDC.
Cormo was incorporated in 2018, and the Rushville facility will be its first plant in America. A pilot production plant in Alsace, France, proved successful. In establishing U.S. operations, the firm wants to take advantage of the country's larger volume of corn.
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