Indiana ‘Pod’ Film Manufacturer Growing In-State

The company's water soluble pod product is called MonoDose.

Listen to this story

Subscriber Benefit

As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now

This audio file is brought to you by

0:00

0:00

Loading audio file, please wait.

Speed
1.00

• 0.25
• 0.50
• 0.75
• 1.00
• 1.25
• 1.50
• 1.75
• 2.00

Merrillville-based MonoSol LLC is continuing to grow its Indiana footprint. The manufacturer, whose water-soluble films are used in products like laundry and dishwasher detergent pods, is planning to invest more than $70 million into a new Lebanon facility and create 89 jobs. Monday night, the Lebanon City Council approved tax incentives for the company. Mayor Matt Gentry tells Inside INdiana Business the Boone County community faced competition outside of the state.

In all, the mayor says the city is offering MonoSol some $3.7 million in tax abatement, which he said was part of several reasons MonoSol selected Lebanon. "It really kind of came down between — we think between — us and a site in Ohio," Gentry said. The community’s proximity to both Indianapolis and Lafayette also factored in and the Lebanon location, he says, will serve as a "showpiece" for when overseas executives fly into Indianapolis International Airport on the way to Boone County or one of the four other Indiana locations. He added the county offers an "extremely business-friendly environment," favorable tax rates, a "significant" amount of available land and the "large labor shed" in and around Lebanon.

Boone County Economic Development Corp. Executive Director Molly Whitehead described the process for landing the expansion. "We’ve been working this deal since late fall of last year — actually, maybe even early fall," she said. "It started out with a nationwide site search, they’ve been looking at multiple properties mostly throughout the Midwest, so we submitted sites from Boone County. Lebanon was one of those and it has just evolved from there."

In addition to the Merrillville headquarters, MonoSol has production operations in Portage, La Porte, Duneland, the United Kingdom and Japan. Its parent company, Kuraray, is based in Japan. The company ceremonially opened the $95 million Duneland facility in Portage in April of 2016. The new facility is expected to be open by 2020. Construction will begin in the second quarter.