Packaging equipment company Premier Tech to double Utah employee base

By Brice Wallace

A Canada-based packaging equipment manufacturer expects to more than double its Utah headcount over the next decade.

Premier Tech Inc., based in Quebec, will add up to 63 high-paying jobs in Woods Cross as it grows from its current 49 employees there. The expansion was announced after the company was approved for a tax credit up to $274,866 by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development.

The company produces vacuum valve bag fillers, air packers, auger valve bag fillers and impeller valve bag fillers, plus several types of auxiliary equipment, primarily for the food, chemical and mineral industries.

In 2009, it acquired the bagging equipment division of Graphic Packaging International of Salt Lake City. Premier Tech has 4,700 employees in 28 nations, including at 47 manufacturing facilities in 16 countries. It has annual revenues of $771 million.

The nearly $19 million Utah expansion project will allow it to increase its manufacturing activities in the U.S., which currently accounts for 42 percent of revenues but less than 15 percent of production, according to Christian Noel, the company’s director of corporate development. The company will transform facilities in Utah, Alabama and Iowa, allowing it to better serve customers in Canada and the U.S.

Noel told the GOED board that it “makes no sense” to serve those clients only from Canada and the expansion will help the company meet its need to optimize the supply chain by increasing its footprint, floor plans and number of jobs and also modernizing its equipment.

The expansion is part of a five-year U.S. strategy that includes transferring technologies from Canada to the U.S. The Woods Cross location will get new equipment and become a small research and development center as well as a client service hub.

The Woods Cross project is expected to result in new total wages of nearly $23.5 million over 10 years and new state tax revenue of over $1.8 million during that time. The average annual wage of the incentivized jobs is projected at $77,303.

“Thank you for your commitment to the state,” GOED board chair Carine Clark told Noel, “and it’s exciting to have your business growing here.”

Steve Neeleman, chair of the board’s incentives committee, described Premier Tech as “a great company doing great things all over the world” and “a really cool company.”

“Premier Tech is a terrific global company,” Chris Roybal, president of the Northern Utah Economic Alliance (NUEA), told the GOED board. “This is an expansion that they could do in a lot of different places, so we’re thrilled that they picked Northern Utah. Christian, we’re pleased with our acquaintance with you and we expect to see Premier Tech do even more in the state of Utah over the coming years, so we look forward to their growth.”

“We’re pleased to have Premier Tech in Davis County,” said Dan Hemmert, GOED’s executive director, said in a prepared statement. “Premier Tech will add to Utah’s growing manufacturing industry, and we wish them success as they continue their growth.”

Bob Stevenson, a Davis County commissioner and co-chair of the NUEA, said the expansion project is an “important addition” to the Northern Utah manufacturing economy. “The company will find us a business-friendly region with an educational system that’s responsive to industry needs,” he said in a prepared statement.

Ben Hart, GOED deputy director, commended the work of NUEA, formed in 2019 to give Davis and Weber counties a stronger voice in Utah’s economic development.

“It really needs to be a model for the entire state,” Hart said. Davis and Weber counties, he said, are “just amazing counties that are doing great things, and Chris is helping to lead that charge … and today we get to see a really great project come to fruition.”