Manufacturers in Mississippi: fewer plants, bigger ones, and the furniture, poultry and shipbuilding behind them

This report is for suppliers and contractors serving Mississippi plants, buyers looking for a Mississippi manufacturer, job seekers and analysts, and B2B sellers sizing the state. It covers the official count and why Mississippi stands out, the counties and industries, who owns the big plants, the state's manufacturing organizations and a prospecting plan.

Mississippi manufacturing in numbers

Mississippi's manufacturing sector (NAICS 31 to 33) in the Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (CBP):

From our ranking of the state file: 29th by manufacturing employees, first by employees per plant, fourth by manufacturing's share of jobs (15.3%, against 8.8% nationally, behind Wisconsin, Indiana and Iowa), and 48th of 50 states for average manufacturing pay.

These are establishments: plants and other locations with paid employees, counted for the week of March 12, 2023. A poultry company with three Mississippi plants counts three times, its head office (often in another state) isn't counted here, and owner-only shops are excluded.

Big plants, by national standards

By band: 1,184 plants have fewer than 20 employees, 510 have 20 to 99 and 287 have 100 or more. That's one plant in seven with 100 or more employees; summing the state files ourselves, the national figure is about one in eleven. For anyone selling into Mississippi, the 287 large plants are the market, and most of them can be named one by one.

Where the plants are

Employees per plant and pay are our calculation from the county file. The Census Bureau published employee totals for Jackson County, home of the Pascagoula shipyard, and Jones County but flagged them as high-noise (noise added for confidentiality changed them by 5% or more), so we don't report them. Lee and Pontotoc counties in the northeast are the upholstered furniture belt: big plants, modest pay. Madison County's 62 plants average 118 employees. Lowndes County pays the most of the large counties.

What Mississippi makes

Transportation equipment has only 81 plants but averages 330 employees each: three motor vehicle plants employ 6,214 people and 41 vehicle parts plants 5,223, and the rest includes shipbuilding. In the detailed codes, 21 poultry processing plants employ 17,668 people, 58 upholstered household furniture plants 15,113, 71 sawmills 3,734, 19 seafood processors 2,080 and seven heating and air-conditioning equipment plants 2,618. Mississippi's nine shipbuilding and repair yards have a high-noise employee figure, so it isn't shown.

Who owns Mississippi's largest plants

There are no SEC-registered listed manufacturers with a Mississippi business address in EDGAR. The state's largest plants belong to companies headquartered elsewhere, and their own filings say so. Huntington Ingalls Industries, based in Newport News, Virginia, says in its 10-K that its Ingalls shipyard occupies about 800 acres on the Pascagoula River and that it is "the largest private employer in Mississippi". CF Industries lists a nitrogen complex at Yazoo City among its six US manufacturing facilities. For a seller, decisions at plants like these are split between the site and a corporate office in another state.

Finding and vetting Mississippi manufacturers

• Mississippi Business Alliance. The former Mississippi Manufacturers Association has unified with the Mississippi Economic Council and the Business and Industry Political Education Committee to form the MSBA, which runs Made in Mississippi and Women in Manufacturing programs for its manufacturer members.
• MEP center. The MSBA also hosts the state's NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership center, described on its own MEP program page.
• Labor data. The Mississippi Department of Employment Security's labor market publications include county employment and wage reports, but no published largest-employers list we could find.
• Safety. Mississippi has no OSHA state plan, so federal OSHA covers private plants; check a plant's inspection history in its Establishment Search.

Confirm a company's legal entity in the Mississippi Secretary of State's business records before signing anything.

Prospecting Mississippi plants

At the big plants, the plant manager owns day-to-day spending, but national contracts for things like uniforms, MRO supplies and staffing are often set at headquarters. Local sellers win on response time and on services a corporate contract doesn't cover: maintenance, training, repair, overflow labor.

Worked example: a forklift service and training company

Illustrative example. Magnolia Lift and its booking rate are fictional; the counts are the Census Bureau's.

Magnolia Lift Services (magnolialift.example) maintains forklift fleets and certifies operators, and targets plants with 100 or more employees in food, furniture, machinery and transportation equipment.

• Mississippi plants with 100 or more employees: 287.
• Food, furniture, machinery and transportation equipment are 195 + 153 + 119 + 81 = 548 of 1,981 plants (28%). At the state's average mix that's about 80 target plants, a floor, because these industries run much larger than average.
• Magnolia starts with Lee, Pontotoc and neighboring counties, where the furniture plants are, and books one fleet assessment for every six plants it contacts.

The research is finding which plants changed hands, added a shift or had a safety incident this year. Bebop can search for "Mississippi furniture and food plants with 100 or more employees that added a shift or changed ownership in the last year" and write a playbook for each.

Subject: Forklifts at [Company]'s [town] plant

Hi [first name],

I saw [Company] [added a second shift / expanded the warehouse] in [town]. More hours on the same fleet usually shows up first as downtime and then as an incident report.

We service forklift fleets and certify operators for plants in northeast Mississippi, on site and on your schedule. Would a free fleet assessment next month help?

[Your name], Magnolia Lift Services

For freight and logistics in the state, see trucking companies in Mississippi.

Next step: for the buying roles inside a plant, see the manufacturing industry guide.