Two companies have announced plans to build a $264 million pork processing plant in Sioux City. Officials with Triumph Foods and Seaboard Foods say the venture will create 1,100 jobs.
But, the city manager for Sioux City, Bob Padmore, says the economic benefits for the area extend far beyond the new jobs. “The project will generate approximately $3.5 million in annual property taxes following the fulfillment of incentives provided to the project,” Padmore said at press conference Thursday. “The demands for supplies and services from the Seaboard/Triumph plant will increase business for existing businesses in our community.”
Construction on the plant, to be located in an industrial park north of Sioux Gateway Airport, will begin later this year. Seaboard Foods President and CEO Terry Holton is originally from Cherokee, Iowa and lived in South Sioux City for 13 years while working at the IBP beef plant in nearby Dakota City, Nebraska. Seaboard is based in Kansas.
“To really bring this project kind of home, for me, is really exciting and I really look forward to it,” Holton said. “I think the community of Sioux City is the best community for us to have this project…and the city has done a fantastic job of making sure there is a viable site.”
The plant will cover about 250 acres and will process around three-million hogs annually. Triumph Foods CEO Mark Campbell noted the facility will be similar to their St. Joseph, Missouri plant, with an “environmentally friendly design” and technology to cut down on odor.
“We expect to incorporate the most modern technologies in food safety, animal handling, and technologies in the food processing industry known today,” Campbell said. The plant is expected to be up and running by summer 2017.
Plant officials are seeking tax incentives from Sioux City, as well as state tax breaks. The Iowa Economic Development Authority Board is scheduled to consider an incentive package for the plant on May 22.
Reporting by Woody Gottburg, KSCJ; additional reporting by Pat Curtis, Radio Iowa