HICKORY – The wholesale grocery distributor MDI will expand in Hickory, upfitting about 250,000 square feet of facility space and hiring at least 125 new employees by 2026 with average wages of more than $59,000 annually, following the approval of an incentives package by North Carolina’s Economic Investment Committee on Tuesday morning.
And the company will invest $35 million as a part of the deal, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper confirmed in a statement on Tuesday.
MDI is short for Merchants Distributors, LLC, and the parent company is Alex Lee, Inc. Both firms were founded in Hickory and are headquartered there.
“As our business continues to grow, demand for perishable products has increased the need for chilled warehouse space to service our customers and communities,” said said Brian George, Chairman and CEO of Merchants Distributors, in a statement.
The new jobs will be added in addition to the company’s existing 630 employees, a representative from the North Carolina Department of Commerce noted on the call, and the deal is contingent upon the company meeting the job creation and investment targets laid out in the newest deal, as well as an existing Job Development Investment Grant previously awarded to the company.
In total, the company will receive approximately $1,266,000 in state incentives, if the job and investment targets are met. In addition, the company could receive up to $3.7 million in city and county incentives, as well.
The company considered locations in South Carolina and in Georgia, but chose to expand in Hickory, where the company is headquartered, according to the representative from the North Carolina Department of Commerce.
MDI was founded in 1931 and according to its website supports independent grocers across the east coast. The company is currently hiring for 65 job openings in Hickory, according to its careers webpage.
In April 2021, a New Jersey manufacturing company announced it would build a facility in Hickory to produce liquid filtration media and devices for the food, beverage, and pharmaceutical industries. And later in 2021, a division of Corning chose Hickory for an $150 million investment in an economic development project that is expected to add 200 jobs in the region.
