A new meat processing plant has made plans to set up shop in northwest Missouri.
Daily’s Premium Meats is expanding its operations to build a new plant that will be processing bacon in St. Joseph. Daily’s Premium Meats is part of an integrated system owned jointly by Triumph Foods and Seaboard Foods.
Missouri Agriculture Director Richard Fordyce said the plant will further process pork coming from the Triumph Foods plant in St. Joseph.
“They will literally take product out of the Triumph plant, literally take it across the street, and add further value and produce bacon,” said Fordyce.
Director of Communications David Eaheart said the plant will be built from the ground up and it will be across the street from the Triumph Foods pork processing plant. Eaheart said the company chose St. Joseph for a couple of reasons.
“Triumph Foods is part of our food system and will be supplying pork bellies to it, so logistically it made sense,” said Eaheart. “The city of St. Joseph offered incentives and a package that was very attractive to Daily’s.”
The Missouri Department of Economic Development claims it has offered a strict incentive package that the company can receive if it meets strict job creation and investment criteria. The company’s expansion project includes an initial capital investment of $41.5 million.
Eaheart said the expansion project will create jobs.
“The plant will employ a little over 200 people and a lot of those will be working on the productions lines where they’ll actually be smoking, curing, slicing bellies, primarily for the food service market, which Daily’s specializes in,” said Eaheart.
Construction of the 100,000 square-foot plant is scheduled to begin this summer and the company expects to be fully operational by May 2016.
“If all goes as planned with the construction of the plant, it should start operations in May, so it will sometime next spring or late winter when we’ll start looking to fill positions,” said Eaheart.
Daily’s Premium Meats was founded in 1893 in Missoula, Montana. It’s sliced-to-order bacon is sold to national restaurant chains, local restaurants, and food service distributors. The company is also trying to build its retail customer base.