Manufacturers in Utah: medical devices, supplements, aerospace and the Wasatch Front plants that make them

This report is for buyers looking for a Utah contract manufacturer or supplier, for people researching or seeking work in the state's plants, and for B2B sellers deciding whether Utah's manufacturing base fits their offer. It covers the official count, the clusters that set Utah apart, the counties, the public companies headquartered in the state, how to find and vet private manufacturers and a prospecting plan.

Utah manufacturing in numbers

The Census Bureau's County Business Patterns (CBP) puts Utah's manufacturing sector (NAICS 31 to 33) at:

By our ranking of the state file, Utah is 30th by manufacturing employees, and manufacturing is 9.2% of the jobs CBP counts in the state, slightly above the national 8.8%. Utah has fewer plants than neighboring Colorado (5,031) but more manufacturing jobs (145,645 against 133,767), because its plants are larger.

What gets counted is the establishment: one physical location with a payroll, in the week of March 12, 2023. A device maker with a plant in Salt Lake City and another in Logan counts twice; owner-only shops aren't included; head offices are classed as management offices.

The clusters that set Utah apart

Together, medical equipment, pharmaceuticals and electromedical apparatus employ about 25,700 people, more than Utah's entire food manufacturing industry. The Census definitions put uncompounded dietary and herbal supplements in medicinal and botanical manufacturing and packaged, compounded ones in pharmaceutical preparations, so Utah's supplement makers are spread across both lines. Sporting goods reflects the outdoor gear makers.

What Utah makes, by jobs

Average pay is our calculation. Fabricated metal has the most plants (695), mostly small job shops; computer and electronics plants pay the most of the large groups.

Where the plants are

Per-plant figures are our calculation from the CBP county file (which sums to one fewer establishment than the state total). The four Wasatch Front counties (Salt Lake, Utah, Weber and Davis) hold 2,624 plants, 72% of the state. Cache and Box Elder to the north have fewer but much larger plants. Autoliv, the airbag and seatbelt maker, lists airbag inflator, airbag, propellant and initiator plants in Brigham City, Ogden, Promontory and Tremonton in its 10-K; Washington County in the south is mostly small shops.

Size

Three bands: 2,631 plants under 20 employees, 751 from 20 to 99, and 283 of 100 or more.

Public manufacturers headquartered in Utah

SEC EDGAR lists 21 companies with a listed ticker, a manufacturing SIC code (2000 to 3999) and a Utah business address. The largest manufacturers, checked against each company's latest Form 10-K:

EDGAR also gives Autoliv an Ogden address, but its 10-K lists Stockholm, Sweden as its principal executive offices, so it isn't in the table even though its Utah plants are among the state's largest. We left out Myriad Genetics, a genetic testing laboratory that EDGAR codes as a diagnostics maker. Revenue is company-wide.

Finding and vetting Utah manufacturers

• Utah Manufacturers Association has represented the state's manufacturers since 1905 and says it represents more than 1,200 manufacturing and service providers. It runs safety services, forklift certification and frontline leader training as well as advocacy.
• UUMEP, at the University of Utah, is the state's NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership center.
• EDCUtah, the state's economic development corporation, announces relocations and expansions.
• For medical device makers, FDA's Establishment Registration and Device Listing database is searchable by establishment state and type, including manufacturer and contract manufacturer. Registration doesn't mean FDA approval, as the database itself says.
• Safety records. Utah runs its own OSHA-approved plan covering private employers, and its inspections appear in OSHA's Establishment Search.

Confirm a company's legal entity in the Utah Division of Corporations records before signing.

Prospecting Utah manufacturers

In the medical and supplement cluster, quality and regulatory leaders hold real buying power, because a failed audit or a recall costs more than almost any purchase. Some consumer brands headquartered here make little in Utah: Traeger's 10-K, for example, says many of its products are made by third-party manufacturers outside the United States. Check where production happens before you pitch the plant floor.

Worked example: a quality systems consultancy

Illustrative example. Wasatch Quality Partners and its rates are fictional; the counts come from County Business Patterns.

Wasatch Quality Partners (wasatchquality.example) runs quality system audits and process validation for medical device and supplement makers with 20 to 249 employees.

• Utah plants with 20 to 249 employees: 481 + 270 + 173 = 924.
• Medical equipment and pharmaceutical and medicine plants are 186 + 100 = 286 of 3,665 plants (7.8%), so about 72 fit at the state's average size mix, a floor, because device makers run larger than average.
• Salt Lake and Utah counties hold 2,032 of the state's plants (55%), giving about 40 accounts close enough to visit weekly.
• That's a list one consultant can know by name; at one audit engagement per five accounts, about eight clients.

The research is finding which makers face an FDA inspection, a new product launch or a retailer audit this year. Bebop can search for "Utah medical device and supplement manufacturers with 20 to 249 employees that are hiring a quality engineer or launching a new product" and write a playbook for each.

Subject: Before [Company]'s next audit

Hi [first name],

I saw [Company] is [hiring a quality engineer / launching a new line]. That usually means the quality system is about to be tested by an auditor while the team is still growing into it.

We run mock audits and process validation for Utah device and supplement makers and leave a closed-out finding list, not just a report. Would a 30-minute call about your audit calendar help?

[Your name], Wasatch Quality Partners

For Utah companies in every industry, see companies in Utah; for the state's software side, see tech companies in Utah.

Next step: the manufacturing industry guide covers who buys at a plant and how to reach them.