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Area Development - Site Selection, Facility Planning and Workforce Development

Unifi Opens REPREVE Bottle Processing Center In Reidsville, North Carolina

09/09/2016
Unifi, Inc. opened its REPREVE Bottle Processing Center in Reidsville, North Carolina. The more than $28 million investment will help Unifi achieve its goal of vertical integration for its REPREVE recycled product line, adding flexibility, expanding production capabilities and supporting volume growth.

REPREVE is Unifi's recycled brand, made from recycled materials such as plastic water bottles. The REPREVE Bottle Processing Center will add 87 new jobs in the Reidsville area, ranging from salaried managers and engineers, to hourly operators, material handlers, electricians, mechanics and more.

"The vertical integration of our REPREVE manufacturing process highlights an important next step in Unifi's continued path toward sustainability and producing high-quality, value-added products," said Tom Caudle, President of Unifi. "The REPREVE Bottle Processing Center uses custom-designed, cutting-edge technology and provides increased flexibility that will allow us to better serve our customers, as well as create a new channel of revenue. We are also proud to support manufacturing in North Carolina and to add new jobs in our communities."

Rockingham County provided a $25,000 matching grant that allowed the REPREVE Bottle Processing Center expansion to qualify for a Building Reuse Grant of $500,000 from the North Carolina Rural Infrastructure Authority under the Rural Economic Development Division at the North Carolina Department of Commerce. To support the expansion of the facility, a Community Development Block Grant in the amount of $861,000 from the North Carolina Department of Commerce was awarded to the city of Reidsville for a larger sewer line to replace aged infrastructure.

The REPREVE Bottle Processing Center includes more than 150,000 square feet of space to be utilized for the new operation, located at the Company's facilities in Reidsville The state-of-the-art recycling center is one of the most advanced in the United States, with the capacity to produce annually 75 million pounds of the highest quality, consistent, clean bottle flake.

Unifi will purchase baled PET bottles from materials recovery facilities across the eastern United States, and bring them to the REPREVE Bottle Processing Center, where undesirable materials will be sorted and filtered using multiple processes to ensure that only the proper, high-quality bottles are kept for use.

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