A co-op formed to buy and re-open a Tama meatpacking plant will hold a news conference today to show what’s been done at the old plant. The former Tama Beef plant was purchased last June by the Iowa Quality Beef Supply Cooperative, where spokesman Ed Greiman says the facility’s been renovated with new equipment. It’ll be seen to be mostly completed, as they finish up a “lot of little things.” More than three months ago the cooperative announced it would take applications, but no workers have been hired yet. There are more than 1,000 applications on file, but he says before hiring anyone they want to know when the start-up date will be. Greiman says they’ll need 400-500 people to run the plant. Promised startup deadlines have come and gone and the new managers have ignored requests for information, but Greiman says all the problems have been unimportant. He says there have been struggles but the board wants to make sure everything’s done right so the plant will open when it’s ready) 950 independent cattle producers have signed on as “producer-members” of the new packing plant, which was given to the city by I-B-P when it closed operations there in 1999.
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