News

Prestage Foods’ Iowa pork plant slated for November start-up

Another major pork processing plant is scheduled to open later this year.

The new Prestage Foods plant in central Iowa is slated to begin operations in November. Initially the plant will slaughter 10-thousand hogs per day on one shift, with half of those hogs coming from Prestage’s own barns. The other half will come from independent producers.

Prestage production coordinator Jesse Sumner says he’s been getting a positive response from producers who are currently marketing their hogs through other companies.

“I think you see folks who have maybe not liked the returns the hog industry has seen in the last two or three years, as you look at what the cutout for meat has been as far as what the hog was worth,” Sumner says. “We’ve seen a spread that’s been at all-time highs and there’s been some frustration. So they’re looking for ways to try to make the math work better.

“With this new plant, there’s an opportunity to make a change. But producers have got to make the change,” Sumner says. “They’ve got to decide that they’re willing to get out, that they’re willing to sell hogs on a spot basis and help with market discovery—some of the things that they had gotten away from over the last ten years that they’re going to have get back being active at.”

Sumner says Prestage plans to eventually add a second shift to slaughter an additional 10-thousand hogs per day, bringing total daily slaughter to 20-thousand.

Sumner spoke with Brownfield at last week’s Iowa Pork Congress.

AUDIO: Jesse Sumner