Ball canning jars will soon no longer be made in Muncie for the first time since the company’s first jars came off the line in 1888.
After founding a company in Muncie – a town with enough natural gas to create a booming factory – and lending the family name and financial support to a local teacher’s college, the Ball Corporation’s headquarters left Muncie for Colorado in 1962. But Ball jars have continued to be made in part in Muncie. That is, until next summer, according to current owner Newell Brands.
In a statement, the company says it’s closing the Muncie factory in summer 2019, due to what it says are needed upgrades and improvements to the plant. A “For Lease” sign is already in front of the company’s local office building on Muncie’s southside. Newell says Ball jars will soon be made in Columbus, Ohio and distributed from Fishers, Indiana.
This isn’t the first move of some production out of Delaware County. In 2014, Ball jars then-owner Jarden Corporation stopped production at a facility in Daleville, moving that business to Fishers. At that time, 120 people worked making jars in the company’s Muncie factory.
This post has been updated.