The numbers from the Conway Projects Database for 2022 showed decided jumps in projects in the machinery, equipment & construction sector (up by 147 projects over 2021) and in the food & beverage sector (up by 126 projects) to lead the way among top industries around the world.

The results come from a year of data collection by the Conway Data research team across global news sources, corporate and government documents to find corporate end-user facility investments involving new construction that meet at least one of the database’s three criteria to qualify for inclusion: a minimum of $1 million invested; a minimum of 20 new jobs created; or a minimum of 20,000 new sq. ft. of space.

The transport & logistics sector, after booming like never before during an e-commerce explosion that was only accentuated by the pandemic, dropped back by 65 projects vs. 2021 totals.

Among the largest projects by investment in the machinery, equipment and construction sector is a $750 million project from Grupo Cementos (GCC) in Odessa, Texas, that will increase annual cement production capacity by over 1 million metric tons. GCC said it “will execute the project at the Odessa plant since the market is developing faster in the U.S. and represents large freight savings, compared to the plant located in Chihuahua, Mexico. This expansion will optimize the cost structure and GCC’s cement network by relocating cement shipped today to this region from Samalayuca, Chihuahua and Pueblo plants to other markets the company serves with optimized freight cost. In addition, the capacity expansion will allow GCC to prepare and participate in the upcoming growth associated with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.”

Among the largest food & beverage projects are a number of alcoholic beverage plants. To support the expected future growth of its high-end Mexican beer portfolio, Constellation Brands plans to invest between $5 billion and $5.5 billion over the next four fiscal years for an additional 25 million to 30 million hectoliters of total capacity that includes construction of a new $1.3 billion brewery in Southeast Mexico in the state of Veracruz, the company said. The site will be joined by continued expansion and optimization at the company’s existing sites in Nava and Obregon.

Other large beverage projects are coming from Sazerac Co. (Indiana and Kentucky); Jim Beam Brands (Kentucky); Frucor Suntory in Queensland, Australia; and Manna Capital Partners in Montgomery, Alabama, where the Kentucky-based firm owned by former NBA player Ulysses L. “Junior” Bridgeman and Kevin Attkisson will construct a massive “beverage park” for production, packaging, distribution and R&D related to both non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages. 

After a desultory 2020 for all the obvious reasons, global corporate facility investment activity was back with a vengeance in 2021, with logistics nearly taking the crown perennially reserved for machinery & equipment as the top industry for total projects.

That’s one conclusion to draw from the project data resident in Site Selection’s proprietary Conway Projects Database. Populated all year long by Conway’s research and analytics team, the database documents corporate facility location and expansion activity involving new construction that meets at least one of these three criteria: a minimum of $1 million invested, 20 new jobs created or 20,000 new sq. ft. of space.

Comparing the 2021 data to the 2020 data offers a direct reflection of the pandemic era’s major trends: surging logistics demand driven by e-commerce, heavy food & beverage demand and a surfeit of IT and business services activity fueled by increasing reliance on those sectors by the work-from-anywhere economy.

An associate monitors a Walmart distribution center in the company’s hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas. Transport and logistics projects grew faster than any other sector in 2021.

Photo courtesy of Walmart

Transport & logistics was the most dramatic upward mover, leaping from 625 projects in 2020 to 1,011 projects in 2021 — a 62% jump that was only five projects short of the 1,016 projects from the machinery, equipment & construction sector, a wide-ranging category that includes semiconductor, glass and wind turbine manufacturing projects as well as all manner of vehicles and vehicle parts.

IT & communications moved into the No. 4 position from off the charts last year, bumping business & financial services down to No. 5 where it displaced life sciences to No. 6, even though life sciences, like every other top category, saw its numbers go up.

The projects displayed on the map on the previous pages are some of the top projects by capital investment in each of the top five categories. Major projects in machinery, equipment & construction include a huge glass plant investment by Kibing Group in Malaysia and a $1.8 billion plant from Tianjin Zhonghuan Semiconductor in Yinchuan, China.

The transport & logistics sector’s list is populated by usual suspects such as Walmart, Amazon and UPS — Amazon accounts for half of the top 32 projects by capital investment, with those 16 projects expected to create a collective 17,550 jobs in such locations as Providence, Rhode Island; Kent, England; Suffolk, Virginia; Goodyear, Arizona; Union, Ohio; and Savannah, Georgia. The top project by investment, however, is a different sort of sorting center, a $1.7 billion automated container port project in Israel from China’s Shanghai International Port Group.

In the food & beverage category, the top project by capital investment epitomizes the sort of comfort food investment one might expect after two years of a pandemic, and it’s coming to a town in Alabama known for its logistics assets. Ohio-based J.M. Smucker Co. in November announced it will invest $1.1 billion to build a new manufacturing facility and distribution center in McCalla, Alabama, located in metro Birmingham, dedicated to production of Smucker’s Uncrustables sandwiches.

A company press release stated that construction of the facility and production will occur in three phases over multiple years, creating up to 750 jobs. “Financial investments and job creation will align with each of the three phases and are contingent on the approval of tax and business incentives and the closing of the transaction to purchase the property where the facility will be located.”

“It’s important for us to recognize the previous Commission and their forethought to add acreage to the Jeffmet Industrial Complex,” said Commissioner Steve Ammons, chair of the Jefferson County Economic Development Committee. “The McCalla area is hot right now due to useable land availability, Interstate access and productive growth potential.”

The site will complement existing facilities in Scottsville, Kentucky, and Longmont, Colorado. “This new facility, and a completed expansion at the Longmont location, will support the company’s strategy to more than double its current production capacity,” the company said. It also plans to double annual net sales to $1 billion in the next five years after double-digit net sales growth annually over the past decade to $500 million today.

“Our Smucker’s Uncrustables brand continues to be one of the fastest growing in our portfolio and in the food sector more broadly,” said J.M. Smucker Co. President and CEO Mark Smucker.