Connected fitness company Peloton is building its first factory in the United States, located in Troy Township in Wood County, Ohio.

The "state-of-the-art" $400 million Peloton Output Park (POP) factory will kick into action 2023, churning out the company's Peloton Bike, Bike+ and Peloton Tread bike and treadmill products. Peloton says that it expects to break ground on the site later this summer.

Manufacturing in the United States

In a statement, Peloton CEO and co-founder John Foley said that:

We are thrilled to bring a good portion of our manufacturing to United States soil and proud that it will be in the great state of Ohio. While we will continue to invest in our Asian manufacturing footprint as well as our existing facilities in the U.S. via our Precor sites, the new Peloton Output Park gives us a massive strategic lever to make sure we have capacity, quality, and economies of scale in our bike and tread product lines, to support our continued growth for years and years to come. We are incredibly excited to meet and welcome the Troy Township community into the Peloton family fold.

The ambitious Peloton Output Park will be located on more than 200 acres of space, and will boast upward of 1 million square feet, dedicated to manufacturing and offices. According to Peloton, this will make it among the largest connected fitness manufacturing plants anywhere in the world. Peloton says that it plans to use renewable energy sources to help power the new facility.

At present, Peloton manufactures its fitness equipment in Taiwan. It is then imported to the United States, where the majority of the company's customers are located. The inherent challenge of doing this was highlighted during the pandemic, when increased demand for home fitness equipment and long shipping times resulted in lengthy delays for customers.

At the time, The Verge noted that Peloton was investing upward of $100 million in air freight and expedited ocean freight to try and improve the shipping delay situation. Peloton admitted that its "inventory [was being] constrained with longer than acceptable wait times for the delivery of our products." Along with the recent recall of some of its treadmills, this is one of the bigger challenges Peloton has faced as of late.

Creating Jobs, and Saving on Shipping

The new manufacturing facility in the U.S. will reportedly create 2,174 new manufacturing jobs. While there's a long way to go until the factory is completed---and customers and would-be employees can start reaping the benefits---it all sounds extremely promising. Hopefully it will be smooth sailing from here.