PROGRESS: Seaboard Triumph begins to build $264 million pork plant

In May, Seaboard Foods and Triumph Foods announced plans to build the 600,000-square-foot plant, which is expected to open in mid-2017.

Seaboard, a division of Merriam, Kansas-based Seaboard Corp., and St. Joseph, Missouri-based Triumph Foods, formed a new entity, Seaboard Triumph Foods, that will have equal ownership in the Sioux City project.

Mark Porter, chief operating officer of the Sioux City plant, said the company has received a warm welcome in Siouxland.

“Sioux City and Northwest Iowa have a long and rich history in agriculture and food production that has made the Siouxland region such a great place to live and work," Porter said in a statement. "We appreciate the heartfelt welcome we received since announcing our plans to build a world-class pork processing plant and are anxious to begin operations in 2017."

Porter has a wealth of pork and broader food industry experience, having previously served as vice president of operations with AdvancePierre Foods in Enid, Oklahoma, where he was responsible for the manufacturing network across the country.

He also had operational roles in other food companies and spent eight years in the U.S. Navy as a submarine operations officer.

Triumph Foods CEO Mark Campbell said the plant will start with a single shift of about 1,100 salaried and hourly employees. If demand increases and the community can support the labor, a second shift could be added, creating an additional $50 million in capital investment and about 900 more jobs.

Last fall, grading began at the 250-acre site in the city’s Bridgeport West industrial park, located just north of Sioux Gateway Airport, east of the Missouri River and west of Interstate 29.

"The plant construction is well underway and Seaboard Triumph Foods couldn’t take on an endeavor this size without a supportive community," Porter said in a statement. "We are honored and excited to be part of the next chapter in this ongoing story of Sioux City and the entire Siouxland region in producing food for people throughout the world."

Local and state leaders, who spent more than four years recruiting the two leading pork producers, delivered a package of tax breaks and job training assistance worth about $27 million.

Several local leaders have said the pork plant will have significant impact on Siouxland through economic growth and a surge in the local labor force.

Chris McGowan, president of the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce and Siouxland Initiative, said the plant will increase labor numbers, which fell after the John Morrell plant closed in 2010, eliminating more than 1,300 jobs.

Marty Dougherty, the city's economic development director, said the opening of the pork plant will cause a wide range of economic impact in Siouxland.

"The hog industry in Iowa is a $7.5 billion industry. Iowa produces more hogs than any other state in the country," Dougherty said. "It's a natural fit for Sioux City."

The new factory's $48 million-a-year payroll and spending on economic materials, supplies and services is expected to ripple through the local economy, creating new sales for a host of ancillary businesses, from truck drivers to pallet makers to cold storage warehouses.

As many as 1,200 construction workers are expected to be deployed to build the plant, which will be modeled after the Triumph Foods plant in St. Joseph. When up and running, the state-of-the-art plant will have the capacity to slaughter 10,000 to 12,000 hogs per day, or 3 million per year.

The increase in workers also means larger amounts of traffic near Bridgeport West. The city approved a transportation study to analyze traffic surrounding the business park. Once the plant opens, as many as 300 inbound and outbound trucks a day will contribute to local traffic.

Dougherty said the construction includes a dozen roads and will cost approximately $6 million.

"It's funded 80 percent by a state ... grant, 10 percent by the city and 10 percent by the company," he said.

Dougherty also said the city will keep neighboring businesses in the conversation as construction of the pork plant continues.

"We will continue to interact with other businesses in the area as we design the improvements," Dougherty said.