Iowa meatpacker buys Nebraska plant

An Iowa meatpacker’s decided to expand by buying up a slaughterhouse in Nebraska. Fred Hlava is city manager in Gordon, Nebraska, where the local meatpacking plant closed four years ago. He says they’d been working for quite some time with the firm from Postville, and now Gordon’s grateful that the “Local Pride” company sees opportunities where others saw only problems. A number of operators in recent years had tried to run the plant and failed, one by one. It’s called the old Nebraska Beef Plant, and the buyers, who produce both kosher and non-kosher products, haven’t decided what will be killed there yet — Hlava guesses beef and lamb — but after slaughter it will be sent on for more processing at the Iowa plant. They’ve bought the packing plant and also some additional land, and Hlava says that shows a longterm commitment to the town of Gordon and the local business. He says these owners plan to stay and make it work, with about 100 employees once it gets going in 4 or five months. Hlava says the new owners still have a lot of changes they want to make at the old plant, and must get USDA approval to reopen operations.