The $100,000 grant provided over three years is awarded based on the company’s performance agreement, according to a press release. The company will move into an 11,500-square-foot vacant warehouse in the Broadway Corridor in the Woolen Mills District. The relocation will allow the company to triple production capacity of its products and canning line, as well as create eight new jobs. The company will purchase 1.5 million pounds of Virginia-grown apples in the next three years to meet production goals. The expansion invests $900,000 of new capital.
“Potter’s Craft Cider is the quintessential economic development story for Albemarle County — an agribusiness with long roots in our community which takes locally-grown apples, transforms them into a value-added product that not only supports farmers but also creates production jobs, further activates the rejuvenated Broadway District and brings revenues into Albemarle County,” Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Chair Donna Price said in a press release. “From an economic development standpoint, it simply does not get any better than this.”
The county will contribute $50,000 as a match for the Virginia Department of Agriculture grant and award $50,000 as a match from the Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development.