Credit: Smart Wood

On Wednesday, October 18, Governor Matt Bevin joined local and state officials and executives from Smart Wood, a French family-owned manufacturer of ice-cream and coffee-stir sticks, to open the company’s Corbin facility, a 90-job, $15 million operation capable of producing up to 2 billion sticks annually. Formerly known as Euro Sticks Group, Smart Wood is a multigenerational family company with facilities around the world. In Corbin, the company built out an existing building in the Southeast Kentucky Business Park to house the new operation. Eastern Kentucky’s supply of beech trees attracted the company to the area. The facility will use locally sourced beech logs to manufacture ice-cream and coffee-stir sticks in a variety of sizes, shapes and lengths.