Manufacturers in Illinois: Chicago has the plants, downstate has the big ones

This report is for buyers sourcing from Illinois suppliers, people researching the state's manufacturing jobs and employers, and B2B sellers planning an Illinois territory, especially outside Chicago. It covers the federal count, the Chicago and downstate split, what the state makes, the public companies based here and how to prospect the downstate plants. For the metro in depth, see manufacturers in Chicago.

Illinois manufacturing at a glance

From the US Census Bureau's 2023 County Business Patterns (CBP), manufacturing sectors 31 to 33:

Ranking the CBP state file ourselves, Illinois is sixth by manufacturing employees. Manufacturing is 9.6% of the state's private-sector jobs, a little above the US share of 8.8%.

Two markets: the Chicago area and downstate

These come from the CBP county file, which totals 11 fewer plants than the state figure. Cook County alone has 4,350 plants and 174,930 employees, more manufacturing jobs than 26 of the 50 states.

Downstate, manufacturing gathers around a string of mid-sized cities:

Boone County's 63 plants average 133 employees and McLean's 81 average 90, a sign of a few large plants in each. The Greater Rockford Chamber of Commerce describes the Rockford region as specialized in precision manufacturing, especially aerospace, and runs the Midwest Aerospace & Defense Alliance (MASDA) for the sector.

What Illinois makes

(Average pay: payroll divided by employees, our arithmetic.) Food employs more people than any other subsector, in plants averaging 63 employees. Inside machinery, 119 agriculture, construction and mining machinery plants employ 14,560, an average of 122 each. Transportation equipment's 350 plants average 154 employees, the largest of the big subsectors.

Illinois also has 85 petroleum and coal products plants, but their employee total is not reported here: the Census Bureau published it with a high-noise flag, meaning the noise it adds to protect confidentiality changed the figure by 5% or more.

Plant size

Put another way: 8,094 plants have fewer than 20 employees, 3,137 have 20 to 99, and 1,234 have 100 or more. CBP counts establishments with paid employees, not companies: each plant is counted where it is, head offices count as offices, and owner-only shops are left out. Employee counts are for the pay period including March 12, 2023.

Public manufacturers headquartered in Illinois

EDGAR has 62 listed companies with manufacturing SIC codes and an Illinois address. Only one is outside the Chicago area. The ten largest by revenue, with figures from each company's latest annual report:

Revenue is company-wide. The state's economic development corporation, Illinois EDC (formerly Intersect Illinois), lists John Deere, Ford, Caterpillar, Rivian, Medline and AbbVie among the top Illinois manufacturing employers, several of them with large downstate plants and headquarters elsewhere.

Where to find Illinois manufacturers

• IMEC, the Illinois Manufacturing Excellence Center, is the state's NIST MEP center, based at Bradley University in Peoria with more than 50 staff and partners around the state.
• Illinois EDC for expansion projects and the state's target industries, including advanced manufacturing and food processing.
• Greater Rockford Chamber of Commerce and its MASDA aerospace and defense alliance, for the Rockford region; most downstate cities have a chamber or economic development group that tracks local plants.
• OSHA establishment search for a plant's federal inspection and citation history.

Prospecting downstate Illinois

Downstate plants are fewer, larger and farther apart, so territory design matters more than in Chicago. Many are branch plants of national companies: the plant manager runs maintenance, safety and local services, while raw materials, capital equipment and enterprise software are bought at corporate. Locally owned plants in the same towns buy almost everything from the owner's desk. At ag equipment makers and food processors, ask about the busy season early: it shapes both what they need and when they'll meet.

Worked example: an industrial packaging distributor in Central Illinois

Illustrative example. The distributor and its assumptions are invented; the plant counts are Census data.

Prairie Pack Supply (prairiepack.example) sells stretch film, corrugated boxes, strapping and packaging equipment service from a warehouse near Bloomington.

• Downstate Illinois plants: 3,820. Food, machinery, and plastics and rubber are 3,319 of the state's 12,465 plants (27%), so about 1,017 downstate plants fit by industry.
• Statewide, 35% of plants have 20 or more employees; at that share, about 357 downstate plants are big enough to buy packaging by the truckload, a floor, because downstate plants run larger.
• Its first territory is Peoria, Tazewell, McLean, Macon and Champaign, with 547 of the 3,820 downstate plants (14%): about 51 accounts to start.

The slow part is learning which plants are shipping more this year. Bebop can search for "Central Illinois food and machinery plants with 20 to 249 employees that announced an expansion or are hiring shipping supervisors" and research each one.

Subject: Packaging supply for [Company] in [town]

Hi [first name],

I saw [Company] is [expanding the [town] plant / adding a shift]. More output usually means stretch film and box orders that arrive just in time, or not quite.

We deliver packaging from Bloomington to plants across Central Illinois on a fixed weekly route and keep a safety stock for each customer. Could I bring samples and a price sheet next time I'm in [town]?

[Your name], Prairie Pack Supply

Next step: turn these counts into a working list with how to build a prospect list.