Maker of Outdoor Products Gears Up for Growth

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Exxel Outdoors has received plenty of press for moving its sleeping-bag manufacturing from Mexico and China to Alabama. Now, Chief Executive Harry Kazazian wants to bring more manufacturing jobs to Southern California.

The City of Industry company, which makes low-cost camping gear, is launching a high-end line called 180 South, some of which it hopes to manufacture in or around the area.

“This is going to be higher end, and I think those consumers are looking for American products,” Kazazian said. “Outside of military tents, I don’t know of any commercial, viable companies that make tents here.”

Kazazian unveiled the 180 South line, which includes sleeping bags, backpacks and tents, this summer and plans to do a full launch in January. Exxel has hired a gear designer who has developed products for camping giant Kelty, part of St. Louis-based American Recreation Products Inc., and Bass Pro Shops Group, a Springfield, Mo.-based outdoor retailer.

Initially, 180 South products will likely be made in China, but Kazazian said he plans to be making some of the line domestically by July.

The plan, he said, is to get the product into stores, including higher-end shops such as REI, then figure out which of the best-selling products could be made domestically.

“We need to find out what the local capabilities might be,” he said.

Exxel owns a plant in Haleyville, Ala., where 180 South sleeping bags and tents would likely be made, while the idea is L.A. workers could make 180 South backpacks through partnerships with local sewing factories.

The company has about 90 employees at the Alabama plant and Kazazian said the 180 South line could eventually mean as many as 200 more jobs in Alabama and Southern California.

Strike That, Reverse It

While Exxel wants to expand out of Alabama and into California, Pharmavite LLC, a Northridge maker of vitamin supplements and Soyjoy snack bars, is going the other way.

The company, which manufacturers Soyjoy bars in Valencia, and other products at factories in Northridge and San Fernando, announced last month that it will build a 330,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Opelika, Ala.

The company plans to break ground on the facility this month and start producing its line of Nature Made vitamin supplements there in January 2013. The plant will employ about 280 workers to start.

But Pharmavite isn’t scaling back on its presence in the San Fernando Valley, where the company employs 1,100 workers. The expansion into Alabama, which will cost the company about $74 million initially, aims to meet growing demand for Pharmavite products on the East Coast and will not affect the company’s local employees.

“A large percentage of (Pharmavite) customers are in the eastern United States,” said spokeswoman Jennifer Agnew. “It is critical that Pharmavite be able to serve these customers efficiently.”

Pharmavite is a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Otsuka Holdings Co. Ltd.

No Nukes

Hawthorne’s OSI Systems Inc., a developer and manufacturer of baggage and passenger scanners for airports, last week secured contracts to develop systems to prevent nuclear weapons from being smuggled into the country.

The research and development contracts with the Department of Homeland Security’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office are worth at least $2.7 million, with options that could pump the total up to $7 million. The contracts call for OSI security division Rapiscan Systems to develop computer algorithms as well as scanners to detect nuclear threats at ports and border crossings.

“There’s the R and D, but also building actual detectors or detector materials,” said OSI spokesman Ajay Vashishat. “It’s really about trying to find any kind of material that’s unauthorized or nonmedical that’s crossing boundaries into areas where it shouldn’t be.”

Vashishat said OSI and Rapiscan aren’t well-known for work in the nuclear detection field, but he said a Sunnyvale-based unit of the company, Rapiscan Technologies, has a staff of physicist and engineers studying nuclear and radiation detection.

Staff reporter James Rufus Koren can be reached at [email protected] or at (323) 549-5225, ext. 225.

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