GROVE CITY, Ohio — It’s estimated that the United States consumes more than 120 billion plastic gloves per year.
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly increased global demand for this product and now, an Ohio entrepreneur is working to reduce our dependence on foreign suppliers by manufacturing them in Ohio.
Jacob Block, CEO of American Nitrile, said his business ‘was really created out of the pandemic.” The new central Ohio company has a goal of manufacturing approximately 3.6 billion gloves per year.
“And so that equates to just under 2% of U.S. consumption prior to the pandemic,” he said. American Nitrile operates from a 530,000-square-foot industrial facility located in Grove City.
The gloves are used across several industries, including health care, government and industrial fields. They are produced with synthetic nitrile rubber, instead of natural rubber, and are powder free. This design is engineered to virtually eliminate the risk of allergic reactions, according to American Nitrile.
The company is fueled by Ohio talent. The operation has created about 150 jobs thus far, “but as we scale up and bring more [manufacturing] lines online, we’ll have around 400 people,” said Block.
Part of that talent pool is Maintenance Supervisor Wes Porter. Porter is proud to work for a company that is to bring jobs back to the United States.
“I would rather feed my own family than someone that I don’t even know. I live right around the corner and having something this size right in my own backyard, to me that’s just awesome,” said Porter.
Although the company is new, Block is motivated by proving American production is profitable.
“There are so many people that think you can’t manufacture in the United States as you can in Asia and be price competitive,” he said. But with the automation of low-level repeatable labor, Block said the future is here in Ohio.
