Hazelwood just scored a big win in the agtech game, with Pivot Bio announcing Tuesday that it will expand into the north St. Louis County city, invest more than $7 million and create 40 new jobs as it shifts manufacturing and innovation operations into the region. The company plans to link the new Hazelwood facility with its research and development hub in nearby Creve Coeur, a pairing local leaders are casting as another boost for the growing agtech cluster around the Danforth Center.
According to a news release from the Missouri Department of Economic Development, the expansion will create a Greater St. Louis "Center of Excellence" that combines manufacturing, packaging and distribution in Hazelwood with R&D in Creve Coeur. The agency said the 40 new roles will pay an average wage above the county norm. The release also noted that Pivot Bio will tap the Missouri Works program, which provides capital through withholdings or tax credits tied to job creation, and framed the project as fresh evidence of Missouri’s strength in agricultural technology.
“Farmers are looking for solutions they can count on, solutions that perform consistently and support the long-term health of their operations,” Pivot Bio CEO Chris Abbott said, underscoring the company’s pitch for seed-applied microbes that reduce reliance on synthetic fertilizer. His comments were reported by First Alert 4.
Local Leaders Welcome the Investment
State and local officials quickly lined up to praise the move as a boost for jobs and innovation in north St. Louis County, according to the state release from the Missouri Department of Economic Development. Gov. Mike Kehoe called the expansion a “testament to the strength of Missouri’s vibrant agtech sector,” while Hazelwood Mayor Matt Robinson said the investment confirmed the city as a place for growth. Regional economic developers added that the Hazelwood site is expected to deepen St. Louis’s agtech cluster and spark spillover opportunities for suppliers and labs.
Part of a Broader Midwest Push
The Hazelwood expansion is the latest in a series of moves that have shifted Pivot Bio’s footprint toward the Midwest. In March, the company announced it would relocate its global headquarters to the Twin Cities, a move it said puts leadership and operations closer to growers. Pivot Bio has framed the new Hazelwood and existing Creve Coeur sites as pieces of an end-to-end system that stretches from discovery to delivery, according to Pivot Bio.
Built on an Existing Local Base
This is not Pivot Bio’s first bet on Hazelwood. The company established manufacturing and lab space there in 2023, when it opened a roughly 48,000-square-foot production center on Lambert Pointe Drive, and it already operates research labs in BRDG Park at the Danforth Plant Science Center. That earlier buildout helps explain why company leaders chose Hazelwood for the new manufacturing center, local business coverage shows, according to the St. Louis Business Journal via BRDG Park.
The state announcement did not spell out a public timetable for hiring, and local coverage notes that Pivot Bio will work with state and regional partners on recruitment as it ramps up. The company will use Missouri Works incentives as it grows operations, First Alert 4 reported. For now, officials say the most immediate impact will be added manufacturing capacity and a deeper R&D pipeline for the St. Louis region.
