Custom Flavors, a flavor manufacturer based in San Clemente, California, has officially planted its flag in Concord, debuting its East Coast production hub at a public grand opening on Thursday. The roughly 53,000-square-foot plant has started turning out product and will add labs and extra capacity as a second phase wraps up later this year. Company leaders walked about 70 guests through mixing rooms, sample labs and packaging areas, putting the new operation on full display.
The crowd for the grand-opening tour numbered about 70 people, and the Concord facility currently employs 19 workers with four open positions as it continues to scale, according to the The Charlotte Observer. The paper reports that Custom Flavors develops flavors for bakery, beverage, confectionery, dairy and sports-nutrition products, and it quoted R&D director Sara Mariño describing each formulation as involving “a blend of art and science.” Because of nondisclosure agreements, officials told the paper they cannot share specific client brands, but said many of their flavors are already sitting on grocery store shelves.
20,000 Flavors Under One Roof
Custom Flavors says the Concord facility joins its San Clemente base to offer more than 20,000 flavors and combinations and, with both coasts in play, reach more than 85% of U.S. customers within two business days, according to Custom Flavors. Company materials describe dedicated rooms for liquid compounding and dust-controlled powder blending built to support small-batch sampling as well as larger production runs. Leadership has cast the Concord site as both a logistics hub and an innovation center for brands that want faster turnaround times.
Jobs, Incentives And The Local Pitch
City of Concord meeting records list the project as an approximately $7.75 million investment tied to a plan to create at least 42 jobs over three years, and the minutes show the city approved a three-year, tax-based incentive estimated at about $34,078, according to the City of Concord. The state also spotlighted the project in a release, noting that a performance-based award from the One North Carolina Fund helped secure the expansion, per the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina. Company representatives say they are hiring locally as the operation ramps up toward the city’s employment target.
Built For Scale
The plant sits in the West Winds business park and occupies a roughly 52,799-square-foot building, according to listing materials from Colliers Charlotte. Custom Flavors says it worked with Charlotte-area design-build firm A M King on the conversion and that phase one of the renovation is complete, with future work slated to add an R&D lab and pilot production suites, according to Custom Flavors. Local economic developers have also pointed to the company’s proximity to the North Carolina Food Innovation Lab in Kannapolis as a plus for product testing and scale-up, per the Cabarrus EDC.
Why It Matters For The Region
State and local development officials say projects like this help strengthen North Carolina’s growing food-science cluster by pairing manufacturing capacity with nearby research and training assets. The state’s development arm has emphasized that the facility will trim lead times for East Coast brands while drawing on university and lab partners for technical support, according to the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina. In Concord, leaders have pitched the deal as another vote of confidence in the city’s industrial corridor and workforce.
Custom Flavors reports that it has multiple openings at the Concord site, with local job listings that include production operator and shipping roles. Interested candidates can find current opportunities on regional job boards and through postings such as those on Indeed.
