Philip Morris International (NYSE:PM) just turned a $600 million plan into a $1.2 billion one.
On July 27, the company opened its Aurora, Colorado manufacturing campus, a 780,000-square-foot facility built to produce ZYN nicotine pouches
The site went from groundbreaking to commercial shipments in about 19 months, and it opened just weeks after regulators handed ZYN a marketing edge no other nicotine pouch product has. For a company still known mostly for Marlboro, that combination says a lot about where its growth is actually coming from. The Bull Case: A New Home For Zyn’s Growth Aurora is PMI’s first greenfield manufacturing complex in the US, built on 148 acres and designed to combine production, packaging, warehousing, and distribution in one location.
About $1 billion of the planned $1.2 billion has already gone into the project, and the campus is expected to directly employ roughly 500 people once fully staffed. Company estimates point to about $550 million in annual economic impact and another 1,000 indirect jobs once it reaches full operation. Aurora also joins existing PMI facilities in Owensboro, Kentucky, and Wilson, North Carolina, expanding its smoke manufacturing footprint, and as per the company, the reach to export ZYN into Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.