Business Digest

Bremner expanding with $5 million in state perks
PRINCETON, Ky. — An improved state incentive program favoring existing business growth and a multifaceted land deal fueled Bremner Food Group's decision to move ahead with at $62.1 million expansion of its plant on U.S. 62 west and add 111 jobs.

The Kentucky Economic Development Finance Authority gave preliminary approval of $5 million in tax incentives to enlarge the cookie and cracker plant by about 200,000 square feet and more than double the land around it to 65 acres.

Bremner will increase its work force to about 760 by installing new product lines, moving lines from other plants and increasing warehouse space.

"This will increase our production capability by 20 to 25 percent," said Steven Smith, Bremner vice president of operations. "It also gives us a platform for more growth."

The company plans to buy the closed Fruit of the Loom/AFCO Manufacturing building on U.S. 62 about a half-mile west of the Bremner plant. Smith said the empty complex affords more warehousing space and could be used for manufacturing.

The Princeton-Caldwell County Industrial Development Authority bought the AFCO building for $800,000 more than a year ago after AFCO closed. Bremner is expected to purchase the property for about $400,000, said Gail Cherry, authority chairman.

Rising prices rekindle Pennyrile fluorspar mining
SALEM, Ky. — Hastie Mining and Trucking Co. of Cave-in-Rock, Ill., is investing more than $3 million in Livingston and Crittenden counties to mine fluorspar for the first time in three decades

"This is the only fluorspar mine in the U.S. and the newest one in the world," said Boyce Moodie III, who found the vein and is project manager for the new Klondike II mine.

Fluorspar is integral to steel production, and prices have risen so much that domestic mining is again considered lucrative, he said.

After several years of core drilling and permitting, Hastie is digging the mine on a bluff south of U.S. 60 between Salem and Burna in Livingston County. It is near the former Klondike Mine that Frances Moodie — Boyce Moodie's great-grandfather — opened in 1898 along the Cumberland River.

Hastie, which leases mineral rights on 1,200 acres, will dig into the bluff to tap into fluorspar 200 feet deep.

"It probably will be late summer before we're hauling out," said Don Hastie, the firm's owner. "There's about 4 million tons of proven ore in the ground."

With enough minerals to last 20 years, the mill is expected to employ 30 to 40 once work peaks at least a year from now.

Journal editor Joe Walker compiled this digest.