Ingrams August 2023

MANUFACTURING

tion in manufacturing, as we’ve seen elsewhere in this edition, flows from a combination of strategic advantages, including rock-bottom cost of living levels, which hold down payrolls for employers while at the same time giving employees access to a quality of life that simply can’t be found on the coasts. As a result, companies in a wide array of industry sectors have located their operations in Missouri. In addition to motor vehicles, the state is a powerhouse for the production of food and beverages, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals used by various industries around the world. The labor force is another consideration, drawing on more than 3 million educated workers—from high school graduates to doctoral recipients—out of a working-age population of nearly 3.9 million people. Factors like that drive business decisions that might not seem obvious on the surface. Consider the case of pet-product giant Purina, which in 2021 completed a $250 million expansion of its cat-litter factory in Bloomfield. That city not far from the Missouri Bootheel—a town, really—has a population of just 1,765. But the company saw fit to invest a quarter-billion into a plant upgrade to churn out the No. 1 cat litter brand in the nation, Tidy Cats. As a result, the plant’s workforce was increased by 20 percent. Again: That comes to 450 jobs, making the site a jobs magnet not just in Bloomfield or Stoddard County but across southeast Missouri. Clearly, the folks at Purina are onto something. Missouri Manufacturing Might Vehicle production accounts for far and away the largest component in Missouri’s $14.2 billion export market, but the range of products manufactured here is wide and deep:

Hitting the Afterburners The Spirit of St. Louis was an airplane that gave its namesake city some national notoriety nearly a century ago. For a more enduring reputation in the world of flight, con sider The Spirit of Missouri. The Show-Me State is, after all, a key cog in the wheel of American aviation production, especially since the dawn of the space age. That’s when the state’s aviation capital, St. Louis, was turning out the 20 Mercury capsules that were rocketed beyond the Earth’s atmosphere or into orbit as the nation took its first tentative steps into space. It followed by producing nearly a dozen Gemini spacecraft as the Space Race evolved to meet John F. Kennedy’s challenge of land ing a man on the moon—and returning him safely—by the end of the 1960s. It continues today with major defense programs that form the backbone of a sector that employs more than 16,000 people in the state, turning out Boeing’s F/A-18, EA-18, F-15, and T-7A trainer jets, along with the MQ-25 unmanned refueler. All of that finishing work is done in St. Louis, but the range of aerospace manufacturing com panies—more than 100 of them—is strewn around the state. In many cases, small suppliers for Boeing are key employers in rural communities of the state. The impact of aviation-related production reaches even further into the state’s economy with aerospace-engineering programs at Washington University and Saint Louis Univer sity in the Gateway City, at the University of Missouri in Co lumbia, at Missouri University of Science & Technology in Rolla, and at Southeast Missouri State University in Rolla, where a combined 10 aerospace engineering programs offer degrees at the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels. Related programs at more than three dozen other uni versities and technical schools issue aviation- or defense related degrees and certificates, covering every aspect of manufacturing, from precision production to aeronautics specific supply chain management. All of those factors have been at play in decisions by the Department of Defense to invest $18.2 billion a year into the state, with those dollars impacting more than 25,000 businesses. The net result? Aerospace production that ac counts for one of the biggest elements in the state’s $13.2 billion worth of annual manufacturing output.

Vehicles

$2.68 billion $1.54 billion $1.16 billion $1.16 billion $1.01 billion

Nuclear Reactors/Boilers Organic Chemicals Chemical Products Electrical Machinery Oilseeds/Fruit/Plants Plastics and Derivitives Pharmaceutical Products

$726.61 million $575.91 million $557.06 million $506.03 million $421.18 million $350.58 million $306.79 million $280.79 million $278.2 million $272.04 million $254.6 million $225.69 million $224.09 million $210.19 million $201.07 million $179.88 million $179.35 million $166.74 million $163.08 million

Animal Feed

Medical Devices/Opticals

Grain Products

Aluminum Fabrication

Metal Fabrication

Meat and Meat Products Timber and Derivitives Aerospace Manufacturing Arms and Ammunitions Stone/Plaster/Cement Dairy Products/Eggs/Honey

Copper and Derivitives Miscellaneous Edibles Mineral Fuels and Oils Soap/Waxes/Polish

Hides and Skins

11

DestinationMissouri.com

Missouri’s Business Media

2023