Oswego Town, NY -- About 30 to 40 jobs are being created at the new Champlain Valley Specialty facility in the former Empire Fresh Cuts site in the town of Oswego.
Champlain Valley is renovating and expanding the former onion packing site into an apple processing facility. Production is slated to begin soon and they are interviewing and hiring now — including some former employees of the Birds Eye plant that closed last month in Fulton.
Rep. William Owens, D-Plattsburgh, will meet with Champlain Valley Specialty officials at 9 a.m. Tuesday Jan. 10 at the Oswego site. Champlain Valley Specialty runs its main site in Keeseville, Essex County. Town of Chesterfield Supervisor Gerald Morrow said about 80 people work at the Keeseville site.
Project financing partners in Oswego include Operation Oswego County, Empire State Development and the Oswego County Industrial Development Agency.
Champlain Valley Specialty was one of the projects competing for $103.7 million in money through the Central New York Regional Economic Development Council. Five projects on the council’s plan didn’t end up on the state’s list of approved projects and Champlain Valley was one of them.
The company was moving so quickly on its $4.5 million project that is could not wait for the state approval. The state has offered Champlain Valley $800,000 in tax credits to help with the project, said Empire State Development spokeswoman Laura Magee.