Bloomberg News is reporting Cargill Inc. plans to develop industrial palm-oil plantations and processing facilities in Ivory Coast within five years. The Minnetonka-based agribusiness giant may invest $380 million in the project. Cargill is one of the biggest cocoa exporters in the West African nation, the world’s top grower of the crop.

The Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal reports the new facility will create nearly 300 new jobs. FedEx has also selected Mendota Heights-based R.J. Ryan Construction to build the facility.

Connextions, a subsidiary of Minnesota-based UnitedHealth, announced Thursday that it will be opening a new facility similar to a call center in Irving, Texas. The opening of the facility will likely create hundreds of new jobs in the area.

But the $10 million facility won't come with any new jobs, Patch reports. Much of the new space will be devoted to training, with additional space to house the company's growing research operations.

Rochester-based Envirolastech has developed a new kind of plastic that company founders say can replace lumber in construction. The product outperforms wood in strength tests, won't split, rot or fade, and it gets stronger in cold weather, not more brittle like most plastics, company founders say. They plan to launch manufacturing operations next year, Finance and Commerce reports.

The Minnesota company is expanding with a new facility in Bemidji. The Pioneer reports many of the new jobs will involve customer service work in a call center. The company's president said the firm chose Bemidji because of the number of people in the area looking for work, the communications infrastructure and the variety of training and educational opportunities.