Philip Morris International opened what it calls its first "greenfield" manufacturing plant built in the United States, a $1.2 billion facility in Colorado that will employ 500 workers about 5 miles south of Denver International Airport.
PMI has its headquarters in Stamford, entering this year with a global employee base of 84,900 people. Earnings totaled $3 billion in the second quarter on revenue of $11.2 billion, a 10% increase from a year earlier.
PMI is making Zyn nicotine pouches in Aurora, Colo., adding to existing U.S. plants in Kentucky and North Carolina and a Zyn plant in Sweden. Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized 20 Zyn products as "modified risk tobacco products." The MRTP authorization allows PMI to market Zyn as having lower risk for mouth and lung cancer, heart disease and other health risks compared to cigarettes.
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"We are really putting together now a portfolio that is really, I would say, nicely matching consumer demand and the evolution of the market," said Emmanuel Babeau, PMI chief financial officer, speaking last week on a conference call with investment analysts. "I would say the MRTP is almost coming as an icing on the cake. We were confident this would come — we were confident about the quality of the product. ... It's going to be every lever we can pull to accelerate the growth of Zyn and leveraging this new situation."
Located at 5060 Harvest Road in Aurora, the PMI plant totals about 780,000 square feet on nearly 150 acres. Construction was completed in 19 months, with Philip Morris International doubling the size of its expected investment since announcing plans in 2024.
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In addition to manufacturing and packaging, the site will be used for warehousing and distribution, including for export to Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Stacey Kennedy, CEO of U.S. operations for PMI, told Fox Business that "zero is the gold standard" for PMI in its goal to keep nicotine pouches out of the hands of children and adults below age 21, in a Monday interview on "The Claman Countdown." The company produces several flavor varieties of Zyn.
"We work with government, with the FDA, with state and local officials, and importantly with our retail communities," Kennedy told Fox Business. "We have very stringent plans and programs in place, including training and a lot of different efforts, to make sure that nobody under the age of 21 can purchase a can of nicotine pouches."
The company reported a 1.8% increase in domestic shipments of Zyn, to 2.9 billion pouches in the second quarter. Standard cans contain 15 pouches, and cans of the newer Zyn Ultra contain 20 pouches. PMI revenue is dominated by international sales of cigarettes and smokeless tobacco including vape products.
PMI is currently restructuring its U.S. operations, including the planned closure of an office in Richmond, Va., and the transfer of some of those roles to Stamford and a newly established office in Tampa, Fla.
PMI inherited the Richmond office in its 2022 acquisition of Zyn-maker Swedish Match, with the company reporting 135 jobs impacted in a filing with the Virginia Department of Labor, the large majority of those workers offered transfers. In its second quarter results, the company reported taking a $25 million charge against first-half earnings for "separation" and other employee costs.
At a cost of just over 50 jobs, PMI is also closing a Swedish Match cigar facility in Dothan, Ala., with plans to consolidate cigar production in the Dominican Republic.
This article includes prior reporting by staff writer Paul Schott.
July 29, 2026
Alexander Soule is a staff writer with Hearst Connecticut Media focused on business, development and the Connecticut economy. Alex is a Maine native who served a two-year enlistment in the U.S. Army before attending Connecticut College. Before joining Hearst Connecticut, Alex started a growth economy website called Enterprise CT chronicling Connecticut startups, with previous work including the Fairfield County Business Journal, the Boston Business Journal, the Rochester Business Journal, Mass High Tech, InsuranceTimes and the MIT Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.