A new PPE manufacturing facility at Hudson Holdings Group in Piscataway celebrated its grand opening on Wednesday.
Workers
diligently kept the 18 machines going, which are able to produce 90 million
three-ply masks every month. There is a lot of storage at the facility since
they officially started production in mid-December.
Around
nine million masks are being stored in boxes. Since there is a demand for more, the factory will be expanding into
adjacent spaces. They will also soon break ground
on an N-95 manufacturing facility in upstate New York.
“We have a high demand which
we cannot even deal with,” says senior advisor Russ
Gerson. “For example, you know we have
a customer who wants a surprise 100 million right now. Our capacity is 30 [million] to 40 million but we are still in the process
of ramping up.”
The company employs around 70 people and their staff
is expected to double or triple in the next few months as they expand.
“We have created here in New
Jersey a manufacturing facility to produce these face masks that have a strictly been produced in China, we are using
American labor, we are doing it in a cost-efficient way,” says founder Jonathan Ho.
Company leaders say it’s about collaboration,
transparency and keeping prices low in order to make a profit, and a penny
business can be as competitive as imports.
Once
the pandemic passes, the company says it plans to continue to bring other types of manufacturing to New Jersey and the United States.