Duluth Jobs Tour

First Up- Moline Machinery!

I have had this idea of touring area businesses and manufacturers for a while but it always gets shelved (Councilors have lives too you know!). Well I pulled the trigger and began reaching out to area manufacturers and businesses to give me a tour and tell me a bit about what they do and how they drive the local economy and tell me their successes and their struggles (and if you’re daring let me try my hand at the craft!). No business is too small so if you’re reading this and want me to come out let me know! I intend for this to be a monthly ordeal so please reach out! Email me at nhobbs@duluthmn.gov, tweet at me, Facebook message me, or leave a mention in the comments below! Selfishly this is also one of the best parts of the jobs of City Councilor.

Fun Fact- there is over a 50% chance the donuts you eat was produced from a Moline machine

Moline Machinery

I drive by Moline Machinery all the time on my way to Demo-licious to drop off construction waste from our house projects. I also have been meaning to ask for a tour of the place for quite a while, when I was door knocking two years ago when I ran for City Council I knocked on one of the doors of a Moline Machinery employee, and he was really proud of the work that he does.

I’ll preface this with the tour and conversation was really that engaging I didn’t think to take pictures for this. My apologies, you will get internet pictures and probably about a 1/10th of the excitement that I experienced from the tour. You will however take away some great nuggets of info about an area employer that I am really proud is right here in Duluth and has been since 1945! I’ll save you the entire history of Moline Machinery (you can find that here).

Where I met Gary!

Last Tuesday (the 21st), I met Gary Moline out at his business (it’s been a family business since they opened with a brief stint of being owned by Pillsbury)we talked shop, a bit about how I like Council etc. Moline employs over 80 people right in the Irving Neighborhood, and most of them Union! These are high paying, good manufacturing jobs. Moline employs a lot of engineers, and has a good relationship with our area colleges. Moline Machinery employees manufacture and design the equipment that makes a lot of household food items that you would recognize! Such as Kwik Trip donuts, KFC & Jimmy Dean Biscuits, Totino’s Pizza Rolls (the crust) among others- the end of the tour Gary poured out a box of all the items that Moline’s machines help produce (I wish I would have gotten a picture for you all). A lot goes into manufacturing the machines that manufacture your donuts, breakfast sandwiches, biscuits, snacks and dinners, one piece that Gary showed me cost over a million dollars!

The million dollar machine looked a little like this

Not everything that is produced is over a million dollars, Moline also manufactures items such as this-

This cuts dough for donuts!

But there was a lot of machinery that looked like this, again, manufactured right here in Duluth!

There was a lot of machines that looked like this

Moline Machinery also in 2012 expanded into offering a test kitchen for company's to test products in a commercial kitchen/production setting, the next closest one if I recall is in Pennsylvania- pretty neat to have this in my/our front yard. I’m glad Moline Machinery has been here for as long as they have and hope they continue to do so, it’s great to have this type of manufacturing right here in Duluth.

This is what some of their machines do. CAUTION- if you are hungry don’t watch this video-

Thanks for reading, if you know of a business that would be cool to profile and visit let me know! As always here’s how you get a hold of me

My email is nhobbs@duluthmn.gov

Twitter handle @hobbs_duluth

Facebook Page: Noah Hobbs- Duluth City Councilor At-Large

Phone Number #218–730–5351