Click here to subscribe today or Login.
PITTSTON TWP. — Roll out the bottles.
Contract beverage company USHydrations ceremonially debuted a new, $20 million high-speed manufacturing line during a media event Thursday.
Housed in a 250,000 square foot building adjacent to the current USHydrations facility in the Grimes Industrial Park, the new line has been in production for over a year, company officials said.
“When I joined the company, all of us had one goal in mind — to make USHydrations as successful as some other companies that have been built over the years, and that’s not an easy task,” said Prashant Shitut, the firm’s president and CEO.
Shitut, who once led the Times Leader’s then-parent company, Impressions Media, was tapped to lead what was known at the time as Nature’s Way Purewater Systems Inc. in 2015, according to the Times Leader’s archives.
USHydrations was founded in 1996 as Nature’s Way Purewater Systems, Inc., according to its website, serving the region with home delivery service. Sandy Insalaco, Sr. who previously owned a highly successful 14-store grocery chain bearing his family’s name, assumed ownership four years later.
Board Chairman Sandy Insalco Jr. praised the company’s employees and management Thursday for their hard work.
“I don’t do anything here, frankly,” Insalaco joked. “I always dreamed to have what I call my ‘Dream Team,’ my ‘Super Bowl team,’ and I’ve got it here today.”
According to information provided by the company, the new equipment will allow for the production of over 2,000 bottles a minute, or 2.5 million a day.
The new line, which utilizes matrix PET bottle blowers, will rapidly produce and fill bottles of nearly any shape or size, including everything from mineral and flavor injections to custom packaging and labeling.
USHydrations also recently announced anew partnership with CORE, the nation’s fastest-growing organic beverage brand. CORE’s leadership team attended Thursday’s event.
Shitut said the company’s next venture will be to install a state-of-the-art can line in the next year.