Israeli manufacturer Bram Industries Ltd. has chosen Savannah as the site for its first manufacturing plant in the United States. The company made the announcement at Tuesday’s meeting of the Savannah Economic Development Authority board.
The facility will bring a capital investment of $3 million and 60 new jobs to its facility at 300 Telfair Road in the Georgia Commerce Center.
Publicly traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Bram Industries operates through subsidiaries and jointly controlled companies and specializes in developing, manufacturing and marketing injected plastic products. The company currently has four manufacturing plants — three in Israel and one in France.
It hopes to begin production in the United States at its Telfair Road facility later this year.
Incorporated as Bramli USA Inc., the company’s U.S. plant will begin by producing several sizes of plastic storage bins, expanding to encompass many of their other products. Among the major U.S. companies they manufacture for include Wal-Mart, Target, Dollar General, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo.
“The building we are leasing has 432,000 square feet,” said Ran Carmeli, Bram managing director. “To start, we are taking 133,000 square feet, but we expect to grow quickly and — sooner rather than later — hope to acquire the entire building.”
Carmeli said the company has a distribution warehouse facility in New Jersey that it plans to consolidate in Savannah as quickly as possible.
“So the entire Bramli USA operation — both production and distribution — will be based here,” he said.
Available jobs will include managerial and administration, sales, accounting and production positions, including technical, industrial and warehouse workers. Carmeli estimated the company will hire 33 people its first year, be up to 45 employees the second year and 60 the third.
“But my feeling is that’s just the beginning,” he said.
Eli Bramli, owner and CEO of Bram Industries, said in a statement that the company has had a presence in the United States for about 10 years.
“With the great cooperation of the Savannah Economic Development Authority, the city of Savannah and
the state of Georgia, we are very excited to announce Savannah as our first U.S. home base,” he said.
“This strategic development now gives us a production presence in the United States, Europe and Israel.”
Trip Tollison, SEDA president and CEO, said Bram is a welcome addition to the Savannah manufacturing base.
We’re very excited about this partnership,” he said. “We look forward to watching you grow your U.S. presence right here in Savannah.”
The Volvo loss
Before the board celebrated the arrival of Bram Industries, Tollison and Anna Chafin, CEO of the Development Authority of Bryan County, addressed the group on Volvo Car’s decision to build its first U.S. manufacturing plant in South Carolina.
The state of Georgia and a recently formed joint development authority encompassing Bryan, Bulloch, Chatham and Effingham counties was the other finalist for the $500 million project, offering a 1,900-acre mega site in Bryan County adjacent to Interstate 16.
“We’re all disappointed and shocked, but we’re going to get over it and move on,” Tollison said. “I will say that, outside of everybody coming together for the harbor deepening project, this is truly the first major economic development project where we can all say that we really did work together as a region to try to make this happen.
“From the governor’s office and the state economic development department to Georgia Power, Atlanta Gas Light, Georgia Ports Authority, the newly formed Savannah Harbor-Interstate 16 Corridor Joint Development Authority, with leadership from all four counties, Thomas & Hutton, everyone was on board 150 percent,” Tollison said.
“At end of the day, we lost, but we learned a lot from this and look forward to better days ahead.”
Chafin agreed.
“It’s a tremendous accomplishment when you think this joint development authority just started at the end of last year,” she said. “This was the first project we really worked from start to finish, and for us to make it all the way to the super bowl, as Trip called it, is pretty amazing.
“And while we’re all disappointed that we didn’t win, I also think we all should be pretty proud of what we accomplished.”
Curtis Foltz, executive director of the Georgia Ports Authority, agreed with Chafin, but said he’s still puzzled about the outcome.
“I don’t think Anna and Tripp and this local community could have been asked for anything more than what they brought to this project. The ports were a small component of this effort; we were asked to provide input where we needed to support the project. But, from a regional perspective, I really don’t think anything else could have been put on the table or done differently to win this project.
“That being said, I do think there are still questions that need to be answered from a statewide perspective,” Foltz told the group.
“I don’t think the answers are out yet, so we don’t know why,” he said after the meeting.
“But somewhere, somehow, South Carolina outflanked us, and we as a state need to find out how that happened.
“I recognize that selection is a very complicated process, but Georgia just has too many things going for it — from a great site to a great team to a world-class infrastructure — to make sense of this.
“We shouldn’t lose projects like that to South Carolina, period,” he said. “I can only tell you that, from the perspective of Trip and Anna and the joint development authority, you can be confident that every box was checked and it was all done very professionally.
“But we still have questions we have to answer.
“Georgia should have won this project. And we need to figure out why we didn’t.”
JOB INFO
If you’re interested in a job at Bramli USA, send your resume to ljohnson@seda.org