MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — The first bag of cat litter to come off the production line at the new Clorox production plant in Martinsburg was cut open during a Friday morning ceremony.
The 97,000 square foot plant, which will produce the company’s Fresh Step and Scoop Away products, starts out with more than 100 workers, more than 80 of them from West Virginia.
“We’ve found there’s really a great number of skills and readily available to come work at the plant,” Clorox Vice President of Product Supply Services Michael Holly said during a Friday appearance on MetroNews “Talkline.”
The company has a partnership with nearby Blue Ridge Community and Technical College to help train the workers. Clorox presented Blue Ridge with a $10,000 check Friday to express the company’s thanks for the ongoing partnership.
Holly said the Martinsburg site at Tabler Station meets the company’s needs to get its products closer to the east coast.
“We already have a great operation in Kansas but we have found we need to expand and with a lot of consumers over here on the east coast and towards the northeast it has been a great project for us to expand to be able to meet business needs,” Holly said.
He also noted that having the plant along the north-south I-81 corridor and being close to railroad operations in Winchester, Va., as keys in the site selection.
.@Clorox is opening a cat litter manufacturing plant in the eastern panhandle. Michael Holly, Vice President of Product Supply Services for Clorox, discusses why Clorox has stayed in West Virginia. Holly joins @HoppyKercheval. WATCH: https://t.co/yCFQ3nEhk6 pic.twitter.com/CX3QXpJ9oG
— MetroNews (@WVMetroNews) October 21, 2022
Holly said West Virginia has been a good business partner.
“It’s really been an amazing reception here where we’ve really been met with an attitude of finding solutions for those challenges and working together on those and that’s been an amazing part of bringing this project to light,” Holly said.
Clorox plans to be in full production by early next year. The company has also built a 450,000-square-foot warehouse down the road from the plant.
U.S. Senators Joe Manchin and Shelley Moore Capito along with Gov. Jim Justice all put out statements welcoming Clorox to West Virginia.
Clorox also has charcoal operations in West Virginia through its Kingsford brand located in Beryl (Mineral County) and Parsons (Tucker County).
Clorox also announced Friday that it’s giving a year supply of cat litter to the Berkeley County Humane Society along with a $5,000 donation.
WEPM Radio’s Marsha Chwalik contributed to this story.