Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee visited the Babynov plant in Red Boiling Springs March 18, talking about how the company is helping Macon County rise out of poverty.
Babynov is a state of the art facility that packages several varieties of baby food. Although the company is based in France, the Red Boiling Springs facility has become their crown jewel and is projected to be their top-producing facility in the near future.
“When I came into office, one of the things I talked about was how we can transform rural communities within Tennessee,” said Lee. “I traveled to every distressed county in Tennessee two years before I actually became the Governor in order to meet and understand the economies of rural Tennessee better. When I started, we had 15 distressed counties. These are measured by poverty rates. By the time we get out of here, I hope to have that pushed down to zero.”
Lee said companies like Babynov are helping communities achieve success.
“They have been great to invest in a community like this one,” said Lee. “The communities have the local workers, officials, and the partnership necessary to create an environment for a great global company to make a decision to come to this community. When that all comes together, peoples lives are changed.”
Lee says one of the reasons he stepped into the role of governor was to make the lives of Tennesseans better.
“Government doesn’t achieve that on its own. A combination of partnerships within a community does that,” said Lee. “It would never happen without the investments of a great company like Babynov, the senior team, and the board members. We have dozens of French companies in the state of Tennessee. A billion dollars of capital investments from French-owned companies, that employ 10,000 Tennesseans across the state.”
Lee also told of his experience in traveling to France last year in order to build better partnerships.
“We met with officials from Babynov,” he said. “We met with other French companies as well. It was our opportunity to sort of touch base with companies and invite more investment in Tennessee by great global companies such as this one. It does change the lives of Tennesseans, and it does drive economic development. We are the fastest growing state of all 50 states in the country. People are moving here in record numbers, we have the lowest debt per capita of any state, and also one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country as well.
“I think we are moving in the right direction in Tennessee. We have to keep it moving in that direction.”
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