Mark Anthony Brands has selected Glendale, Arizona, as the location of its $250 million West Coast production facility.
The maker of White Claw and Mike’s Hard Lemonade first revealed plans in the fall to invest $385 million to build two new production facilities, including a plant in New Jersey.
The company expects the 916,000 sq. ft. Glendale facility to be online within just seven months. In an effort to shave six weeks off the construction timelines, heavy-lift Russian aircraft were deployed to move heavy equipment.
The Arizona facility is expected to open in June and will employ 200 full-time workers. In addition to White Claw, the facility will produce Mark Anthony Brands’ other offerings, including Mike’s Hard Lemonade and Cayman Jack Cocktails.
“The primary reason we selected Glendale was the innovative thinking and personal support of Gov. Doug Ducey, the city of Glendale, the Arizona Commerce Authority, and their willingness to embrace our vision and commit to the support required for our rapid build-out and aggressive timeline,” Mark Anthony Brewing president John Sacksteder said in a press release. “Once complete, this new facility will be a beacon for the advanced manufacturing capabilities of the City of Glendale and the state of Arizona.”
Mark Anthony Brands is self-financing the approximately $250 million project. The company is forecasting sales of $4 billion in 2020, according to the release. Last year, White Claw sales topped $1.5 billion, with total hard seltzer category sales nearing $2.5 billion, Mike’s Hard Lemonade senior VP of marketing Sanjiv Gajiwala said during a CNN Business panel discussion.
“We’re thrilled that Mark Anthony Brewing has chosen Arizona for their western manufacturing center that will create hundreds of new jobs in the West Valley,” Ducey added in the release. “We are committed to keeping Arizona the best place in the nation to start and scale a business.”
Once both the Arizona and New Jersey facilities are online, about half of Mark Anthony’s volume will be produced in-house. The company also contract produces at Cold Spring Brewing in Minnesota.
White Claw is the top-selling hard seltzer in the U.S., followed by Boston Beer Company’s Truly Hard Seltzer. Combined, the two products make up more than 80% of the market.
During the Beer Marketer’s Insights business conference in November, Mark Anthony Brands founder and CEO Anthony von Mandl said the company could ship and sell 20 million additional cases of White Claw but was constrained due to a lack of capacity, which led to out of stock issues during the year. Mike’s Hard Lemonade president Phil Rosse added that White Claw could have sold an additional 10 million cases in 2019 but the company couldn’t meet demand.