Acme United plant in Fremont set to close
By Steve Herring
Published in News on September 4, 2013 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/BOBBY WILLIAMS
The Acme United Corp. distribution center in Fremont will be closing in May 2014. All 40 employees have been offered jobs in Rocky Mount.
FREMONT -- The Acme United Corp. plant that has operated in Fremont since 1968 is scheduled to close in May 2014, following the company's purchase of a new manufacturing and distribution center in Rocky Mount.
The Fremont plant has 40 employees who have been offered the opportunity to transfer to the Rocky Mount plant some 40 miles north.
The move was announced over the weekend.
Acme is a leading worldwide supplier of innovative cutting, measuring and safety products to the school, home, office, hardware and industrial markets.
"We are pleased those employees have been offered positions up there," Mike Haney, Wayne County Development Alliance existing industry specialist, said. "They have been a long-term good corporate citizen. We will miss them and wish them well."
Haney said the Development Alliance will help to market the company's Fremont facilities.
Fremont Town Administrator Kerry McDuffie said the plant is a distribution facility and is not a big user of the town's water and sewer.
"It is not good news when you have a plant to close," he said. "But they are marketing the building and have hired a firm to market it. I would not be surprised to get a new company that would use more water and sewer and hire more employees.
"It is hard to see it (closing (as) a positive now, but it could be."
McDuffie said company officials also told him a company warehouse in Goldsboro would be closed by the end of the year.
According to a company press release, Acme paid $2.8 million for the Rocky Mount property that was acquired from the Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation of RoomStore Inc.
The 33-acre site includes a 340,000-square-foot building that will allow the company to consolidate two distribution centers and to provide space for manufacturing and growth.
Company officials could not be reached for comment prior to press time this morning.