Cargill to invest $111m in Nebraska food plant conversion

Minnesota, US, based food manufacturer Cargill plans to relocate its ground beef plant in Nebraska, and convert it into a cooked meats facility, with a $111m investment.

The current ground beef production will be relocated to the existing processing facilities at Butler, Wisconsin, and Fort Worth, Texas.

The plant conversion will start in early December and is scheduled to start operations in mid-2016, reaching full production in 2017.

Cargill Turkey and Cooked Meats president John Niemann said: "When completed, our Columbus plant will give us a variety of cooked meat processing capabilities we currently don’t have, and those new capabilities will provide our customers with more options to help them grow their businesses."

While the facility is likely to mainly deal with beef, it will possibly produce pork and chicken.

Cargill Value Added Protein president Chris Roberts said: "These changes will better position us to serve a variety of Cargill customers while enhancing our ability to provide them with products and support they value."

The firm will spend around $27m on the ground beef plants in Wisconsin and Texas to install new production lines and accommodate the additional load.

Out of the 250 employees at the Columbus plant, 80 will be affected at the beginning of plant conversion. The company said it intends to relocate the displaced employees to vacant positions at other Cargill facilities in the region.

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Image: The plant will process cooked meats. Photo: courtesy of Rakratchada Torsap / Freedigitalphotos.net.