Monin's $100 Million Zephyrhills Plant Clears County Approval, With $3.3 Million in City Incentives Attached

Pasco County commissioners have approved Monin's plan to build its largest production and warehouse facility anywhere on roughly 70 acres of the Zephyrhills Airport Industrial Park, a project worth more than $100 million that comes with 100 promised jobs and $3,289,372 in incentives from the City of Zephyrhills. The site sits next to Zephyrhills Municipal Airport, in the same industrial corridor where Bauducco Foods is already building.

The city's incentive package was approved first, and it is not a blank check. Officials tied it to Monin creating 100 new full-time positions with average annual wages of at least $46,760. The company, founded in Bourges, France, in 1912 and still family-run, makes the flavoring syrups behind coffee-shop drinks and cocktails, and already operates a facility in Clearwater that executives say will help train up the new plant.

What the $3.3 million actually covers

Most of the package is not cash up front. It is fees the city agrees not to collect, plus a rebate on city property taxes that only exists once Monin is paying them.

Incentive	Amount / terms
Transportation impact fees	Waived or reimbursed, up to $252,750
Permit fees	Waived or reimbursed, up to $435,060
Job creation cash grant	50% of city ad valorem taxes, years 1-5; 25%, years 6-10
Total value	$3,289,372

Monin's chief financial officer has said the initial phase alone involves more than $111 million and over 100 hires, with the building sized to carry the company's growth for the next 10 to 20 years. The company says it looked at 10 sites in four states before Zephyrhills came out on top on labor availability and site readiness.

The hearing was not all applause

Residents who spoke to local media around the county vote made the same point more than once: the jobs are welcome, the roads are not ready. One Zephyrhills resident said growth is inevitable but infrastructure has not kept up, describing it as putting the cart ahead of the horse. Another said it is already close to impossible to get around on local roads. A third framed it as a choice between two bad outcomes, since landing employers seems to require building more than the area can absorb.

Pasco Economic Development Council leadership answered that the location was chosen deliberately, years ago, based on where infrastructure, traffic patterns and workforce lined up. The Zephyrhills airport property was one of the first parcels enrolled in the county's Ready Sites program, and the EDC's position is that Pasco spent decades as a bedroom community exporting its workers and needs the jobs closer to home.

There is evidence for the demand. Hundreds of people turned out for Bauducco's job fair earlier this year, according to the EDC. That Brazilian baked-goods company bought 72 acres in the same industrial park for a $200 million plant expected to employ around 600 people at full buildout, and broke ground in March 2025. MiTek has also expanded in Zephyrhills.

A city saying yes to plants and no to data centers

The Monin approval lands three weeks after the City Council took the opposite posture toward a different kind of big facility. On June 22, 2026, the council gave final approval to a one-year moratorium on data centers, which bars the city's planning department from accepting applications. No data center had been proposed in Zephyrhills. The city clerk described the pause as precautionary, saying staff will spend the year studying resource demands, what neighboring communities are doing, and neighborhood impacts before the city sets a policy.

Pasco County has been moving toward a one-year data center moratorium of its own, with a second public hearing and vote scheduled for July 14.

Monin has not settled on a builder yet. The company's chief executive has said it hopes to start construction before the end of the year, which would put dirt moving on the 70 acres while Bauducco's first phase is coming online next door. No hiring timeline has been released, and the city's grant payments do not begin until the jobs and the tax bill exist.

For more on what is going up along the airport corridor, follow Zephyrhills Community Website and read more business development stories or catch up on city and county decisions. Think the jobs are worth the incentives, or worried about the roads? Join the conversation in our Community Forum.

Header photo: United States Geological Survey (USGS) / Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)