McKinney's industrial roots run through cotton, not food: after railroads arrived in 1872, the city became a major cotton distribution point. Collin County grew into the nation's sixth-largest cotton producer by 1926, backed by four local cotton gins and the city's first textile mill by 1910. After World War II, McKinney shifted from farming toward manufacturing and never really looked back. That history matters to any producer weighing packaging equipment here now.

That shift shows today. A large-scale defense-electronics manufacturer is McKinney's top employer with 4,200 workers, and a wire-and-cable manufacturer employs another 1,653, evidence of a city with the skilled labor and industrial infrastructure to support serious equipment integration. Per-capita income climbed from $32,849 in 2014 to $46,671 in 2023 as that base grew. No major food or beverage plant has set up here yet, but McKinney sits inside one of the fastest-growing corners of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, exactly where a co-packer or regional food producer looks next when it needs room to expand. When that happens, PLAN IT supplies the Mars Series VFFS baggers, EliteWeigh multihead weighers, and automatic case packers a new line needs, along with PackMaster cobot palletizers to move finished cases without adding headcount. You'll know what you're making here; PLAN IT builds to the scale Collin County's growth demands. Read how a growing food producer scaled production with a properly integrated line, then browse our food and beverage packaging solutions and full range of solutions to see what a McKinney line could run.