Source: Press Release, 4/5/11

U.S. Growers Direct (USGD), a commodities marketing and distribution company, plans to locate a new global distribution center at Triangle North Franklin business park in Louisburg.

The $3.75 million, 100,000-square-foot facility will be built by Golden Leaf Properties, a Franklin County development company, on 18 acres at Triangle North Franklin. USGD, Louisburg will use the space to receive agricultural products from farmers across the southeastern United States and ship them to customers in other countries.

Initially, USGD plans to distribute 100 million pounds of flue-cured tobacco each year from growers in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia to its customers globally. The company will create 10-15 full-time and about 40 seasonal jobs. Eventually, the company expects to expand distribution to other products.

USGD, Louisburg is the first company to locate a facility in one of Triangle North’s four new business parks.

“We’re delighted to welcome USGD, Louisburg as the first tenant at Triangle North Franklin,” said Don Lancaster, chairman of the Kerr-Tar Regional Economic Development Corp., which owns and develops Triangle North’s business parks.

“USGD represents globalization and rural economic development at its best, creating new markets for locally grown products in locations around the world,” Lancaster said. “This investment not only creates jobs and economic benefit for our region, it extends that benefit to communities across the Southeast, from the farmers who  manage the 15,000 acres required to produce this tobacco to the companies that service and supply them.”

The company chose Triangle North Franklin for its distribution facility because of the park’s strategic location near major East Coast transportation routes, proximity to growers of high-quality tobacco, skilled workforce and a business-friendly community that responded quickly to move the project forward, said Raymond Foster, member/manager of USGD, Louisburg.

“This Triangle North Franklin site allows our company to move products quickly in and out as we receive them from farmers and distribute them to customers around the world,” Foster said.

USGD manages and works with about 3,500 farmers in the southeastern United States to market, sell and distribute soybeans, wheat, tobacco, sweet potatoes, corn, onions, blueberries, pork and poultry. The facility is expected to be ready for operation for the 2011 crop year.

Triangle North is a network of four tax-advantaged business parks located in the four north-central North Carolina counties of Franklin, Granville, Vance and Warren. Triangle North was created by the four county governments with funding and assistance from a variety of local, regional, state and federal organizations, including the Kerr-Tar Regional Council of Governments, Research Triangle Regional Partnership, N.C. General Assembly, Golden LEAF Foundation, N.C. Rural Economic Development Center, N.C. Department of Transportation and U.S. Economic Development Administration, and more than two dozen local business investors.

For more information, visit www.TriangleNorthNC.org, call (252) 436-6098 or e-mail info@trianglenorthnc.org.