September 22, 2026 — SIOUX CITY (KTIV TV, Sioux City) — Sioux Honey Association Co-op has broken ground on a multi-million-dollar facility near the Sioux Gateway Airport.
Company details plans for new plant
Kevin Hueser, president and CEO of Sioux Honey Co-op, said the $130 million capital investment will be the largest honey bottling/manufacturing plant in the world.
“It will be the largest honey bottling/manufacturing plant in the world. Capable of producing a number of our current items, but also giving us a lot of stretch in terms of innovation for new products that we can produce,” Hueser said.
Aimee Sandman, director of growth and community impact at Sioux Honey, said the company looked at other locations before choosing to build in Siouxland.
“A year and a half ago we spoke to many different communities in the tri-state area. From there we had a lot of different conversations with different city and state governments to figure out where we were going to land,” Sandman said.
The company decided to stay in Siouxland. The expansion will consolidate their Anaheim, California, plant and bring jobs to Siouxland.
“The number we landed on in our first blush was 35 positions. That probably doesn’t include office staff. As we progress, we intend to continue to grow our brand business which will require more administrative help in our office space as well,” Hueser said.
Facility details
The current facility on Lewis Boulevard in Sioux city is 225,000-square-foot. The new construction will be a 440,000-square-foot facility. It will house a raw material warehouse, processing equipment and five bottling lines.
“We expect to have the walls and enclosure done by Spring of ’27. There will be a lot of work internally with piping and electrical work and those types of things. In Spring of ’28 we hope to have our first product come off the lines,” Hueser said.
The Sioux Honey Association says the new facility will allow the company to expand and strengthen its history in the area.
Sioux Honey Association history
The Sioux Honey Association started in 1921 with a small group of five beekeepers near Sioux City who agreed to share equipment and processing facilities. That business venture grew into a co-op of more than 150 beekeepers nationwide, many of whom have been members for decades.
Hueser said despite changes over time, Sioux Honey has remained a staple in the area.
“There were a lot of bee keepers in the state of Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. That has changed over the last several decades because of modern farming and more row crops, but our facility has always been here, our skill set and our team members have always been in this region, and it’s where we were founded,” Hueser said.
Rob Buhmann, chairman of the Sioux Honey Association Board of Directors, said the association has provided stability for many families, including his own.
“Having a stable, dependable, long-term market and the support and everything that goes with Sioux Honey, it’s huge. It’s almost hard to describe beyond it becomes your identity,” Buhmann said.
The current location was built in 1962 as a result of flooding of the Floyd River.
