Bazooka Brands Moves Ring Pop Operations to New Facility in Matter of Months
It’s a good-news, bounce-back story Bazooka Joe would be happy to relay through the comics found in Bazooka bubble gum.
Bazooka Brands has officially opened its new Ring Pop manufacturing facility in Moosic, Pa. — after being unexpectedly forced to close its Scranton, Pa., plant and find a new home after structural issues forced the closure of the original home for Ring Pop production for 47 years.
Faced with a crisis, Bazooka Brands began its search for a solution, with more than 100 employees’ livelihoods on the line, and the company landed on an empty production space in nearby Moosic.
The 120,000-sq.-ft. space, which is four times the size of the Scranton facility, was built out to manufacture the Ring Pop line. The building formerly housed California-based meal delivery service company Fresh N Lean, which had shut down in July 2024.
The investment was said to be a multimillion-dollar upgrade, backed by Bazooka’s private-equity ownership, Apax Partners LLP, that will allow for 1.5 million Ring Pops to be processed out of the facility per day.
The company said that Ring Pop is projected to surpass $100 million in retail sales, which would be a milestone year for the brand. But the speed at which the entire situation and solution played out may be the greater milestone for the company.
“It would not have been surprising for it to take at least a year or more to get back up and running,” said Tony Jacobs, CEO of Bazooka Brands. “In a matter of weeks, [the Bazooka team] found a new location. In a matter of months, they moved our equipment. And in just six months, the facility, our equipment, and our team were fully operational again.”
