beef processing

New Beef Processing Facility Announced in Iowa

Dan Beef, Cattle

beef processing

Cattlemen’s Heritage plans to build a $325 million beef processing plant in southwest Iowa. The facility will employ 750 people with a target to begin operations in late 2023, according to the Des Moines Register.

Cattlemen’s Heritage, a newly formed company, plans to build the facility near Council Bluffs to process 400,000 head of cattle annually. Investor Chad Tentinger told the newspaper weak cattle prices, strong consumer demand, and available investment capital that had been sidelined during the COVID-19 pandemic helped drive the decision to build the facility. The facility expects to process cattle from Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota.

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The facility helps address the issue of cattle processing capacity in the United States, a hot topic in agriculture today. The four largest meatpackers in the United States process roughly 85 percent of the nation’s beef supply. Disruptions in beef cattle markets started in 2019 when a fire halted beef processing at a Tyson Foods facility in Holcomb, Kansas.

(From the National Association of Farm Broadcasters)