Central Storage & Warehouse’s Caledonia facility. Submitted image.
Madison-based cold storage operator Central Storage & Warehouse has completed a third expansion at its Caledonia warehouse that’s added 109,636 square feet of space and 15,000 frozen pallet positions.
The facility, which now spans more than 334,000 square feet, is located at 12725 4 Mile Road.
Central Storage & Warehouse provides third-party refrigerated warehousing services in the Midwest. It operates five facilities throughout Wisconsin, each with frozen and refrigerated capabilities. The company’s customers include food and beverage manufacturers and life sciences businesses.
“This is the largest building by cubic feet in CSW’s 78-year history and the first freezer we’ve built at 50 feet clear,” said Hill Hamrick, co-CEO of CSW. “This expansion was absolutely essential to supporting our customers’ continued growth and is a testament to our warehouse team’s ability to deliver best in class customer services.”
Originally constructed in 2019 with expansions in 2023, 2024, and now 2025, the facility offers an array of distribution services, has cross-docking capabilities, a drop trailer lot, and is USDA inspection certified for import and export services.
In a bustling kitchen on Martin Luther King Drive in Milwaukee’s Hyland Park neighborhood, an innovative nonprofit is proving that nutritious food can do more than satisfy hunger—it can transform lives.
Food for Health, the first and only medically tailored meal (MTM) provider based in Wisconsin, is on a mission to combat diet-related disease with personalized meal plans, health coaching, and community-based support.
Identified as a social enterprise organization, Food for Health is a business that uses commercial strategies to address social or environmental problems, prioritizing social impact alongside profits, and often reinvesting profits back into the mission to ensure long-term sustainability.
“Our vision is that when the for-profit or the fee-for-service model reaches profitability, 100% of those profits would be endowed up to the public charity to bring full self-sustainability to the nonprofit,” said Kathy Koshgarian, President and CEO of Food for Health.
A comprehensive approach to health
Food for Health’s flagship offering is the B3 Healthy program, a 12-month immersive experience focused on whole-person care. Participants receive 10 fresh, medically tailored meals delivered weekly to their homes, along with biometric screenings, a dedicated health coach, and educational resources. The program is designed to serve those living with or at risk for type 2 diabetes, hypertension, obesity, maternal health issues, and cardiovascular disease.
“We focus on whole person health,” Koshgarian explained. “That’s why we wrap around our participants with food, fitness, and focus—because knowledge and behavior are just as important as what’s on your plate.”
In addition to its kitchen and distribution space, the organization’s headquarters includes a fitness zone and classrooms for lifestyle education. Its commitment to local impact extends to hiring practices. Food for Health prioritizes employing neighborhood residents and sourcing fresh ingredients from Wisconsin producers and local brokers whenever possible.
“It is extremely important to hire direct from the community,” Koshgarian said. “It’s about transforming and positively impacting our employees’ lives and providing earning potential close to home.”
Addressing an urgent need
The stakes in Wisconsin are high. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the state, responsible for 22% of all deaths in 2022. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 80% of premature heart disease and strokes can be prevented by addressing modifiable risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, obesity, and diabetes.
Food for Health aims to tackle those root causes through evidence-based nutrition and wellness programming. As of January 2025, Wisconsin Medicaid began offering reimbursement for medically tailored meals for select populations. The benefit applies to individuals with diabetes, heart disease, or high-risk pregnancies, but its implementation is up to individual HMOs.
“I’m hopeful we’ll start to see rollout in the second half of 2025,” said Koshgarian. “But for commercial insurance plans, we’re still years away.”
“We are the solution to solve for nutritional need and to reverse the epidemic that exists of diet-related disease through the most efficacious solution and the basic human right of nutritious food. To me it’s a civic challenge, a societal challenge and an individual challenge to support and amplify the fact that there is a solution—and at Food for Health, we provide that solution.”
Kathy Koshgarian, President and CEO of Food for Health
Support the mission
“Food for Health is Milwaukee’s best kept secret. We don’t want to be a secret any longer,” Koshgarian said with a smile.
Food for Health offers several ways for individuals, employers, and community members to get involved. Traditional routes like donations and volunteering are always welcome, but Koshgarian emphasizes that raising awareness can also be impactful.
“Sign up for our newsletter, follow us on social media, refer someone to the program, or consider us for healthy catering,” she said. “There are so many ways to help.”
The organization also rents out its facility for events and offers its fresh, flavorful meals through a catering service, providing additional opportunities to support the mission.
To learn more about Food for Health, connect with the organization here.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Russ Klisch, president and owner of Lakefront Brewery. Klisch shows a letter and stress ball he received from a supplier related to tariffs.
On Monday morning at Lakefront Brewery, president and owner Russ Klisch pulled out a letter he recently received from Berlin Packaging, one of his can suppliers. The letter, which asked if the recipient was feeling stressed by tariffs, was accompanied by a stress ball.
“I thought it was appropriate that Berlin Packaging went to that extreme,” said Klisch.
Lakefront Brewery is one of eight small businesses that were represented at a Monday roundtable during which business owners vocalized how ever-changing federal tariff policies are impacting them. The roundtable was hosted by Sen. Tammy Baldwin.
Following the introduction of what President Donald Trump has described as reciprocal tariffs, Lakefront Brewery has seen a decrease in production of about 4%. A large amount of the company’s gluten-free beer was being exported to Canada, but those imports have halted.
Lakefront also imports several of the ingredients that it uses to make beer. That includes malt from Belgium, which now has a tariff of 10%, and high-end brewing equipment from Germany.
How tariffs will impact Lakefront Brewery’s substantial restaurant operation remains to be seen.
“We don’t yet fully understand the increase in food costs we might have,” Klisch said.
Andy Gehl, co-founder and president at Milwaukee-based Third Space Brewing, said uncertainty is also a big challenge within his operation.
Third Space hasn’t seen a direct price increase caused by tariffs yet, but Gehl said he is bracing himself for eventual increases.
“It’s incredibly challenging to run a small business,” he said. “Our margins are incredibly tight. We want to hire and purchase equipment and grow our business, but it’s hard for us to invest that cash in those things.”
Handling increasing costs at Third Space isn’t as simple as raising prices for consumers, Gehl added.
Third Space’s beer is shipped via a three-tiered system involving a distributor, retailer and consumer. It would take at least six months before the company saw any return on increasing costs.
Ryan Bandy, chief business officer at Indeed Brewing, said he recently received a 65% increase for a purchase order related to new tap handles. The brewery is also in the middle of a project that involves upgrading new packaging equipment.
“For two of our parts, wait times just doubled and prices are up 30%,” said Bandy. “We already budgeted for this project and we’re halfway through. We’re wondering if we can finish it.”
It’s difficult to make any business plans now due to the constant “chaos,” Bandy explained. While brewery owners are crafty, he said they need more than a 90-day window of clarity to make decisions.
Other industries
Following a severe drought that took place two years ago, many of Wisconsin’s farms are “just on the edge of viability,” said James Syburg, owner of White Oak Farm in Oconomowoc.
Trump’s tariffs have made it difficult to decide where, and from whom, the company sources materials from.
“Farming is so dependent on very critical timing,” Syburg explained. “You can pass that window purchasing the seed, which means you pass the window to plant.”
Ugo Nwagbaraocha, president of Milwaukee-based Diamond Discs International, said he is also receiving cost increase letters from both American and international manufacturers.
Diamond Discs International is a supplier of construction tools, specializing in diamond-edged cutting blades, core bits and small power tool items.
“It’s amazing to see the level of concern (suppliers) have with what’s going on,” he said. “We all have relationships and contracts. How do we approach our contract with these types of absurd increases down the line?”
She said Trump’s tariffs ripple down to small business owners who rely on affordable tools and software. The tariffs raise costs and make it harder for small businesses to grow – and harder to serve families who are already strapped for cash. Broxton has seen sales decrease by 10% over the past month.
“People have to decide if they should repair their vehicle now or wait because they just don’t know (how things will pan out),” she said.
At Milwaukee-based fusion restaurant Amilinda, chef and owner Gregory León has seen sales drop 20% over the past month. The company imports most of its food from Portugal and Spain, which means Amilinda was already operating on a “very thin margin.”
“We can pass some cost on to our customers, but the problem is the more we raise prices, the less people we’re going to see,” said León.
Rafael Guerrero, president and CEO of Oak Creek Wood Products, is no stranger to dealing with supply chain back-ups and price increases. Guerrero said he believes President Trump’s tariffs make it even more difficult to explain to homeowners the importance of investing in quality equipment. People can no longer afford his services.
“I have to explain to the homeowner, who already reports two jobs, why they shouldn’t choose the $5 product and why they should choose the $50 product — and these are both made in China,” said Guerrero. “This isn’t just a tariff. It’s a tax.”
On his very first day working for Jefferson County as assistant to the county administrator, Michael Luckey was part of a crucial meeting: Jefferson County was making its pitch to Kikkoman, the Japan-based food products manufacturer best known for its soy sauce, to get the multibillion-dollar company to choose the city of Jefferson for a new manufacturing plant.
Representatives from the county, the city, the local school district, the technical college and even housing developers were there to help make the county’s case, Luckey said.
“We had everyone there to show what our community would support, and how we would be able to all rally behind this,” said Luckey, who has since been promoted to Jefferson County administrator.
“I kind of figured when I took this role that Jefferson County was poised for something special,” Luckey said. “Now, with some of the things that have been happening in the past couple of years, Jefferson County, we’re going to take off.”
Jefferson County officials say the county, which sits within the I-94 East-West corridor between fast-growing Dane and Waukesha counties, can grow to rival the I-94 North-South corridor in Racine and Kenosha counties – the region’s primary development hot spot for the past decade.
That goal, however, would mean more than doubling Jefferson County’s GDP and is far from certain as officials look ahead to a series of challenges that could stymie success.
Strategic location between Milwaukee and Madison fuels growth
Situated between Wisconsin’s two economic engines, Milwaukee and Madison, Jefferson County could stand to benefit from growth in those metros spilling into its borders.
Deb Reinbold
“Historically, the Milwaukee metro area kind of ended at Waukesha County, and then Dane County has been so Dane County-focused that they didn’t look east,” said Deb Reinbold, president of Thrive Economic Development, a public-private organization created to promote the economic competitiveness of Jefferson County.
Reinbold and others are banking on both of those things changing.
To the east, Waukesha County continues to fill up, especially along its primary transportation corridors, making development sites for new buildings hard to come by these days. The land that is available is becoming more expensive.
“A lot of times when we find a property, they’re sort of one-off deals, farmers who just happen to be retiring,” said Nelson Williams, CEO of Brookfield-based Briohn Building Corp., which primarily develops build-to-suit and speculative industrial space. “Maybe there was an older, smaller building that’s become obsolete, that had some excess land that we could scrape and repurpose for a bigger building.”
Aztalan Bio’s facility located between Johnson Creek and Jefferson
According to the latest Commercial Association of Realtors Wisconsin report, Waukesha County has an industrial real estate vacancy rate of only 1.2%. Industry experts generally say a healthy vacancy rate is around 5%, and historically what’s been considered a healthy rate has been even higher.
That’s pushed Briohn and other industrial real estate developers farther north to places like Washington and Ozaukee counties, farther south in Waukesha and Walworth counties and farther west to Jefferson County.
So far, Briohn has built a 300,000-square-foot building in Johnson Creek that’s occupied by Waterloo-based Trek Bicycle Corp. and a land site next door that’s approved for a 150,000-square-foot industrial development, which they’ve been marketing with a few users interested, according to Williams. Briohn has another site in Johnson Creek for a manufacturer that’s looking to expand, as well.
“There’s a lot of work pulling us in that direction,” Williams said.
Nelson Williams
To the west, Dane County continues to boom with business and population, seeing a 34% increase since 2000, accounting for most of the state’s population growth.
The result has been skyrocketing home prices, with some reports showing a 156% increase since 2000.
That gives Jefferson County a unique opportunity to boost its housing stock and position itself as a more affordable alternative to Dane County, said Matt Moroney, CEO of Wauwatosa-based commercial real estate firm Wangard Partners.
“There’s a limit, but people are willing to drive a little bit further to find quality housing,” Moroney said. It takes about half an hour to drive from Lake Mills in western Jefferson County to Madison, and about 45 minutes to drive from Ixonia in northeastern Jefferson County to downtown Milwaukee.
The Nestlé Purina plant in Jefferson is receiving a $195 million expansion investment
Further, commercial development in the Madison metro is already trickling eastward. Amazon is building a 3.4 million-square-foot distribution center in Cottage Grove, one of Madison’s eastern suburbs.
“Geographically, we hit the jackpot,” Luckey said.
But having an excess of well-located land isn’t the only attribute that is driving investments to Jefferson County.
Transportation corridors like I-94 and Highway 26, which was redone about a decade ago as an expressway that bypasses Watertown, Jefferson and Fort Atkison, play an important role in attracting investment.
The existing local talent pool is also highly attractive to big companies like Kikkoman, Reinbold said. County leaders work closely with local school districts to expose students to potential careers in food and beverage manufacturing.
Jefferson County’s vision: Agribusiness, manufacturing, biohealth and housing
Jefferson County officials hope to leverage these strengths to accomplish a series of development goals.
Through its strategic plans, the county has outlined four industries in which they hope to grow: agribusiness, food and beverage manufacturing, advanced manufacturing and biohealth.
In the case of the former three industries, county officials looked “back to our roots” to determine the best use cases for the area’s abundant land, natural resources and pool of manufacturing talent.
Michael Luckey
To kick off some of this growth, the county is supporting the creation of a 165-acre Food and Beverage Innovation Campus, which will be anchored by Kikkoman’s manufacturing facility in Jefferson, and Onego Bio, which makes an animal-free egg protein that is nutritionally and functionally the same as egg whites.
Currently, about 80% of the county is farmland, and county officials don’t want to shift that ratio too much in the pursuit of economic growth.
“We still want to be an agricultural community,” Luckey said. “We support agriculture, not only as in itself, but also as a business. We have farmers that make their living off of the land, and we need to make sure that that land is preserved and clean and usable and we support business opportunities for them.”
“We also don’t want our entire county to be built over,” he added.
As for the biohealth piece, Jefferson County has found itself in the middle of the federally designated Wisconsin Biohealth Tech Hub for advancements in personalized medicine. The hub is based in the Milwaukee, Waukesha and Madison areas with “manufacturing spokes” around the state, according to an executive summary of the project.
A rendering of a full-scale Onego Bio manufacturing facility
“Firms will begin to want to locate near this hub of talent, research, innovation and supply chain,” Reinbold said. “Jefferson County will be an obvious choice to consider as that effort gets underway.”
In order to support this industrial growth, county officials know they will need to address diverse housing needs, which makes up another pillar of Jefferson County’s growth strategy.
Already, a 2024 housing study concluded that the supply of housing in Jefferson County is about 3,500 market-rate housing units short of the demand, not including affordable or luxury units that are also in short supply, the study says. The demand for housing in the county is expected to grow as more companies begin hiring workers in the area.
Jefferson County recently launched a $9.5 million revolving loan fund earmarked for gap financing, which will incentivize the creation of additional housing units.
“We did a tour of Palermo, and I met an employee who was going to be commuting up from Janesville every day just because it was a great job and there was really no place for him to live closer that he could find,” Luckey said.
In pursuing their development goals, county officials say they believe Jefferson County can grow to the economic scale of counties like Racine and Kenosha.
“I don’t think we need to shift expectations. I think that that’s realistic for us,” Reinbold said.
That goal would require Jefferson County to more than double its GDP. In 2023, the county had a real GDP, measured in 2017 dollars, of about $3.7 billion, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. By comparison, Kenosha County’s real GDP was just under $8 billion and Racine County’s was just under $9 billion.
Since 2001, Jefferson County’s real GDP has grown at a 0.8% compound annual growth rate. Racine County’s economy is essentially flat over the same period while Kenosha County has grown at a 1.8% CAGR. Source: U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, FRED
Overcoming infrastructure, energy and housing challenges
Asked if they view Jefferson County growing to the likes of Racine and Kenosha counties, several developers and brokers agreed that the momentum is there, but development – particularly speculative development – will come at a slower pace.
The primary reason is that companies moving across the border from Illinois propelled a lot of the growth in the I-94 North-South corridor, especially in Kenosha, and that flow is unlikely to occur in Jefferson County.
“I don’t know that we’re going to see, you know, multiple million square footers out there,” one developer said.
“I think speculative development could be slower to pick up in Jefferson County than in Kenosha,” a broker of industrial space said. “The recent announcements from manufacturing users have certainly gotten the attention of developers, but I don’t see big business parks in the immediate future.”
“The response we get when we pitch Jefferson County is that it’s just a little too far,” Williams said. “The challenge is less about working in these communities and more of the perception. If you’re a Milwaukee-based business, it’s a little bit of a hike to get out there. But if your needs are large-footprint facilities, and there’s no large sites available in Waukesha, there’s not much choice left.”
To realize its goals, county officials know there’s a series of challenges they need to address. The most pressing is energy capacity, Reinbold said.
One of the primary reasons Kikkoman is able to build and operate its facility in Jefferson is that the closure of the Tyson Foods plant freed up considerable amounts of energy capacity for a new dominant user. Kikkoman anticipates it will use about 20 megawatts of energy while the rest of the city of Jefferson uses about 16 megawatts, according to Reinbold.
However, without further investment in its power supply, Jefferson County could reach its power limit. While We Energies has been a willing partner with Jefferson County, officials said, getting the energy provider’s attention for further investment is tricky, especially among huge energy needs for data centers planned or under construction in Racine, Kenosha, Port Washington and beyond.
“(We Energies) has priorities throughout the entire state, and so we need to continue to make the case with them as to why Jefferson County is the next big thing and why we should start making investments now,” Luckey said.
The next hurdle is making sure housing growth can keep up with job growth and ensuring support from municipalities and residents to approve those types of projects.
“Change can be hard for some people, and so we’re trying to make sure that we balance our intentional economic growth with that,” Reinbold said. “We want to make sure that we don’t just put up a building in the middle of a farm field.”
The county is confident that it can work with municipalities to keep housing development in and around already developed areas and communicate to residents the need for housing to keep Jefferson County affordable amid its growth.
“If we don’t grow, we’re dying,” Reinbold said.
The county is also trying to work proactively to put zoning in place that supports the development it wants in order to take some risk away from developers who might be hesitant to pitch a project that could die during the approval process, according to Reinbold.
“Whether or not these communities will let housing in, especially multifamily housing, is something I have my eye on,” a Milwaukee-area developer said. “Because that can really be the enduring thing, as we’ve seen in places like Kenosha and even Madison. They’ve got the business growth, but housing has been slow to follow, and NIMBY-ism is a big part of that.”
Jefferson County rises a key link in the Milwaukee-Madison growth corridor
While some growth in Jefferson County is occurring independently, economic development professionals see the county’s growth as indicative of a new development corridor in the state.
“I remember moving to Wisconsin in 1999, at that point in time, you would drive from the Illinois border up to Milwaukee, and you really didn’t see much besides gas stations, adult bookstores and the Mars Cheese Castle,” said Dale Kooyenga, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. “Now the experience of driving down that I-94 corridor from Illinois to Milwaukee is an experience where you see just tremendous investment. I think – in fact, I know – the same type of momentum will occur between Milwaukee and Madison.”
Kooyenga emphasized that Jefferson County is uniquely positioned to build on synergies between Madison and Milwaukee. Madison is skilled at developing intellectual property and other tech-based things, especially in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, while Milwaukee is a manufacturing hotbed.
“We have the knowledge, we have the manufacturers, we have the not-for-profits, and the systems that are all part of this ecosystem, which can bring us to the next level,” Kooyenga said.
There are other areas that could compete with Jefferson County, though, said Jim Barry, president of Milwaukee commercial real estate firm The Barry Co. The I-94 North-South corridor is still seeing momentum, and I-39 south of Madison has also seen increased attention from developers, both of which could drain off some investment from Jefferson County.
“Twenty-five years ago, there was minimal development in Oconomowoc, and now you have industrial parks and subdivisions; Pewaukee was sort of an afterthought, and now they’re one of the hottest markets,” Barry said. “I can see a similar phenomenon playing out in Jefferson County and creating new connections between Madison and Milwaukee, albeit at a slower pace.”
As Jefferson County sees it, the county has unique strengths and strategic plans to continue the momentum of investment.
“We’re right in the middle of this growing, emerging corridor,” Reinbold said. “A lot of people just haven’t noticed yet.”
For the second year in a row, a highly successful Plymouth-based maker of canned cocktails has topped the Inc. Regionals: Midwest list of fastest-growing private companies.
The Inc. Regionals listing is an extension of the media company’s annual Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies. Ranking No. 1 in 2025 is Carbliss, a provider of vodka-, tequila- and rum-based canned cocktails with zero carbs and sugar founded in 2019by Adam and Amanda Kroener. Its products are available at bars and grocery stores across a growing footprint of Midwest states.
In the six years since its founding, Carbliss has grown from selling 52,000 cans to a projected 72 million cans in 2024. The Inc. Regionals: Midwest list pegged the company’s two-year growth rate at 3,685%, which tops the Midwest region of Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio and South Dakota.
Overall, Midwest startups are failing to grow at the same rate as their regional counterparts. The 139 Midwest companies that made the list had an average median growth of 86%, the lowest of any region.
By comparison, the 142 Pacific-based startups on the list saw an average median growth of 124%.
Carbliss led the seven Wisconsin companies on the Inc. Regionals: Midwest ranks. Here are the others making the list, with their overall rankings and two-year growth rates:
13. Sewer Ninjas, Butler: 374%
24. Midwest Restoration, Kaukauna: 216%
42. Applied Tech, Madison: 140%
51. Zodica Perfumery, Madison: 114%
122. The Evoke Agency, Madison: 32%
133. A.B. Data, Milwaukee: 23%
In order to qualify for this year’s list, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by March 31, 2021, and be based in the U.S., with a minimum revenue requirement of $100,000 for 2021 and $1 million for 2023. Companies were ranked according to percentage revenue growth from 2021 to 2023.
Calypso chief executive officer David Klavsons. Photo courtesy of King Juice Co. Inc.
Milwaukee-based KJ Holding Corp., the owner of Calypso Lemonades, announced recently that it has acquired Aliso Viejo, California-based Mela Water, a provider of watermelon waters.
“We are thrilled to welcome Mela to the beverage platform we have built behind Calypso. Mela is a great brand with strong consumer appeal that is delivering outstanding growth,” said David Klavsons, CEO of Calypso. “Mela’s exceptional taste, unique flavors, tropical vibe, and functional hydration make it a strong complement to our Calypso brand. We believe our national and international DSD network coupled with our commercial and supply chain capabilities will significantly accelerate Mela’s growth.”
Mela Water’s portfolio of watermelon waters includes Original, Passionfruit, Pineapple, and Ginger flavors. Mela products can be purchased online and in retail locations including 7-Eleven, Target, Wegmans, Fresh Thyme Market and others.
Mela Water
“We are excited to join the Calypso platform as we enter the next phase of our growth,” said Dom Purpura, CEO of Mela Water. “Our team has done a fantastic job building the brand over the last several years gaining significant distribution with leading retailers while sustaining strong unit velocities. It’s now the perfect time to join the Calypso platform and leverage their infrastructure to scale the brand nationally and internationally.”
A year after announcing a $195 million expansion at its manufacturing facility in Jefferson, Nestlé Purina is testing its newest production line with plans to start making sellable products within the next two months.
St. Louis-based Nestlé Purina PetCare Company said last April it planned to increase production of its wet pet food brands in Jefferson by nearly 50%, including Pro Plan, Fancy Feast, and Beneful IncrediBites. The expansion will create 100 jobs once the new production line is running full-time.
As part of the expansion, Nestlé Purina constructed a new warehouse to accommodate growing production needs. The warehouse added nearly 35,000 square feet of space to the company’s plant located at 111 W. Plymouth St.
The new warehouse was needed because space within the facility that had previously been used for storage was converted to house processing and packaging equipment.
In total, there are now three production lines that can manufacture wet pet food at the Jefferson plant. Additional technological upgrades were also made.
“The expansion includes upgrades to our packaging equipment, including the addition of robotic palletizers,” said the company in response to written questions. “These systems automate the stacking of completed cases of pet food into units for shipment, improving efficiency and consistency.”
The WEDC is supporting the expansion project by authorizing up to $1.7 million in performance-based business development tax credits over the next five years. The actual amount of tax credits Nestlé Purina will receive is contingent upon the number of jobs created and the amount of capital investment during that period.
In addition to its main Jefferson facility, Nestlé Purina purchased the former Timewell Drainage Products facility located at 201 W. Plymouth St. for $2.29 million last December.
The facility is located immediately southwest of Nestlé Purina’s existing manufacturing plant. Part of the Timewell building is currently being used as a trailer drop lot. However, in the future, the company plans to use the space as a warehouse to support increasing wet food production.
“The Jefferson factory is integral to Purina’s operations, contributing significantly to the feeding of over 46 million dogs and 68 million cats annually,” said representatives from the company. “Jefferson has been a fantastic partner in our growth. The city has shown strong support for our expansion—from assisting with land acquisition for our new parking area to facilitating the purchase of the nearby Timewell property. The community’s collaboration and long history with Purina make it an ideal place to continue investing in modern manufacturing.”
While Nestlé Purina doesn’t have plans to start making new products at the Jefferson plant, the company says the equipment added there provides extra flexibility.
“As we continue installing additional processing equipment into 2025, we’ll have the capability to produce any of the products currently made on our existing lines,” said company representatives. “This flexibility will allow us to quickly adjust production to meet shifting business demands.”
4 Brothers Blended Beer Co., which was the family-owned company behind City Lights, filed for receivership Feb. 14 in Milwaukee County Circuit Court. The brands for sale include Hazy IPA, Coconut Porter and Mexican Lager, according to a marketing letter issued recently by Milwaukee attorney Seth Dizard, who on Feb. 28 was appointed receiver.
The recipes are the creation of the company’s brewmaster, and the company is willing to sell the recipes and associated brands, the document states.
Dizard, of law firm O’Neil, Cannon, Hollman, Dejong & Laing SC, is seeking qualified buyers prepared to move quickly, as he would like to close the transaction within 60 days.
The receivership petition states that 4 Brothers has assets with a book value of about $1.1 million. The company’s assets have a fair market value that “is significantly less than the book value of those assets and the liabilities that are secured by its assets,” according to the petition.
Meanwhile, 4 Brothers has liabilities totaling $4.4 million, including $2.8 million in debt owed to an individual.
As the receiver, Dizard is authorized to sell all of 4 Brothers’ property for the benefit of the company’s creditors.
City Lights Brewing, at 2200 W. Mt. Vernon Ave. in Milwaukee’s Menomonee Valley, ceased operations Jan. 4 after seven years. The City Lights team wrote in a Facebook post that the decision to close “was gut-wrenchingly difficult and comes after numerous challenges have made it unsustainable to continue.”
The brewery was operated by members of the Gohsman family.
The marketing letter states that the brewery’s revenue reached just under $1.9 million at the end of 2022. However, the company suffered losses because of the lasting effects of the pandemic, coupled with a capital-expenditures-heavy business, the letter says.
City Lights diversified its product line by producing hard seltzers and canned water, but those efforts were unsuccessful, the letter states.
“Persistent working capital issues led the owners to the conclusion that City Lights must file for receivership,” the letter says.
Four months after MobCraft Beer closed its doors in Milwaukee’s Walker’s Point neighborhood, a former employee and her husband plan to bring back the taproom and brewery by early spring.
Sarah and Mike Halstead paid $160,000 for the business, which will be housed inside a 14,000-square-foot facility under a five-year lease at 505 S. Fifth St. Another 1,474 square feet will be dedicated to sidewalk dining.
Sarah Halstead said an opening date is dependent on all of the needed approvals, but the couple is aiming for May.
Mike and Sarah Halstead
MobCraft was founded in 2013 by Henry Schwartz and Andrew Gierczak. It began in Madison before moving to Milwaukee in 2016. The brand made headlines early on for being Wisconsin’s first-ever crowdsourced brewery, taking requests from patrons for a new beer every month. Some were one-offs, and others were added to the regular line.
Sarah Halstead worked for MobCraft Beer as its director of finance and HR from February 2019 through March 2023, a position she said made her “familiar with the back-end side of processes and the MobCraft community, and what people enjoy of what makes MobCraft, MobCraft.”
She said her previous employment with the company provided her the knowledge of understanding the financial opportunities as well as possible pitfalls.
“I don’t think I would have ever found another business that I was as intimately familiar with from a financial perspective and understanding the risk and opportunities,” she said.
The time in between when Sarah Halstead worked for MobCraft Beer and then became its owner has been spent with family, helping out at a local chocolate shop and working as a part-time bookkeeper for a private equity firm.
Mike Halstead works as a mechanical engineer, a job he will continue as Sarah also plans to continue her part-time jobs while they “look forward to building a fantastic team at MobCraft that will allow us to keep our jobs.” She had not yet determined how many people MobCraft would employ.
While the couple continues to envision their plan for the business and are deciding on a lot of details, they anticipate maintaining flagship beers such as Bat$h!t Crazy and MobCraft Amber, Sarah Halstead said. A food menu will also be similar to the business’s previous offerings, including appetizers, seasonal salads, sandwiches and pizzas.
At least one popular item expected to return is The Whitewater, which Sarah Halstead said has to come back because the mac and cheese pizza is one of her daughter’s favorites, minus its usual spice with added sriracha.
“Who can go wrong with mac and cheese pizza?” Sarah Halstead said.
Big news: Harrigan Solutions LLC is now Harrigan Sanitation Solutions LLC. We’ve also adopted the slogan “Trustworthy Teams | Continuous Improvement.”
Why? To better reflect our core focus on sanitation, especially in food plants, and emphasize our continuously improving sanitation crews, the backbone of our company.
CEO Bill Harrigan: “The addition of the word ‘sanitation’ to our company name speaks to our core focus and expertise—providing sanitation services, particularly in food plants where cleanliness and hygiene are paramount. Our teams’ high level of engagement and commitment is what sets us apart, and ‘Trustworthy Teams|Continuous Improvement,’ captures the essence of this approach. We pride ourselves on having trustworthy sanitation teams who are not only skilled but also deeply invested in their work. This high engagement translates to low turnover rates, which in turn reduces risk for our customers.”
VP and Managing Partner Dave Stern: “Our Crew Chiefs and Pit Crew Members—and their devotion to continuous improvement—are the most important part of the work that we do for our clients. This update to our company name and slogan emphasizes our goal to establish trust within and between our teams, as well as to refocus our work that we do for our sanitation clients.”
The bottom line:
Customers: Clearer understanding of the services we provide, and stronger trust with our engaged sanitation teams. Financial results through continuous improvement and low turnover.
Employees: Growth and success through a unique, proven process of ongoing employee engagement.
