Tiger Commissary is scheduled to open next month in Jessamine County and will help provide up to 30  new jobs for residents as it expands over the course of time.

“We are in the process of getting employees and managers. Once we get that manager trained we are going to get them in here and we are going to set up our pick area where we will have order pullers and they will pick individual inmate orders and we will ship them,” Roger Josham, director of Tiger Commissary said. “It will create five to six new jobs at first until we expand to two pick lines and we get more jails.”

Tiger Commissary is a three-phase company, shipping items from clothing, to candy bars and potato chips. The company also offers food service to jails it partners with, where employees will take over a kitchen by ordering all the necessary food and help prepare meals for inmates.

Josham said the company picked its new location in Jessamine County because it was centrally located between its service areas in Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee. Working alongside Jon Sallee, Jessamine County jailer, Josham said its new location will ensure next-day deliveries through Fed Ex.

“Phillip Reed, one of the regional sales managers I have had at the jail for five years now, came to me one day and said we are looking for another spot to put a warehouse,” Sallee said. “So I called a couple people that I knew to get ahead of the game because I knew they were looking at some surrounding counties like Madison and Woodford.”

Sallee worked calling real estate agents in the county and said the building the company decided to purchase was the first one they walked into.

Working alongside Greg McNally of the Jessamine County Economic Development Board, Sallee found ways to help the business be able to purchase a property ensuring the new business would be able to open in Nicholasville.

“I hooked him up with Greg who helped him,” Sallee said. “I said, ‘look, we got to get these people in here whatever incentives that economic development can offer. We need to get that and get in front of the horse here.’ He helped them get some tax incentives through the state to make them want to come here to Jessamine County.”

For Sallee, bringing money into Jessamine County is highly important.

“We are struggling as a county financial,” Sallee said. “Any amount of money that we can bring in here to help grow any kind of base is good. Plus, it will create up to 30 jobs. I know that they are already talking about bringing some of their IT stuff here. It is just a good thing and I am super excited about it.”

“We save the jails considerable amount of money,” Josham said. “We save the county a lot of money. In our home county, we saved them $100,000 a year by taking over their kitchen because we have the buying power and we have the manpower to do this efficiently whereas some jails are not able to do that.”

Josham said the company buys products from one of its major suppliers in Louisville, as well as product from Sam’s Club and Walmart, and is always looking to bring in more businesses for their needs. Having a location in Jessamine County provides a way for Tiger Commissary to not only be served quicker, but also get its product out faster.

“It is a great location,” Josham said. “Now I can service my jails more efficiently. What better service can you have than that. In Jessamine County, we found a great building. It seems like it was a good match for us.”