SIOUX CITY — Less than eight months after opening, officials at Seaboard Triumph Foods are already focused on hiring for a second shift at the massive pork plant.
“I couldn’t be more proud of our first shift operations that started this past fall and am excited about starting up the second shift," said Mark Porter, chief operating officer of Seaboard Triumph Foods.
The $301 million plant went online in September and hiring gradually ramped up to 1,100 workers — 900 hourly and 200 salaried — to staff a single shift.
“Our biggest accomplishment to date, aside from completing construction in August 2017, has been building the amazing team that has assembled around us,” Porter said. “I take pride in our talented workforce. Each day, they work together to supply the most sought-after pork products to customers around the world.”
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A second shift, expected to begin by early summer, would add about 900 jobs, growing total employment to around 2,000.
With the current shift, about 10,500 hogs can be slaughtered and processed daily at the 925,000-square-foot plant, which is the second-largest fresh pork plant in the world and one of the newest of its kind in the U.S. Adding a second shift will double that number, to more than 20,000 hogs daily, or 6 million hogs per year.
“We’ve incorporated robotics and innovative technology into our plant to improve precision, increase production yield, minimize worker fatigue and increase safety,” Porter said. “That’s what makes our facility state-of-the-art and so unique.”
Once the plant is fully staffed, STF will become the largest employer in Sioux City and the third largest in Siouxland trailing only Tyson Foods Inc. in Dakota City and Well Enterprises Inc. in Le Mars based on recent estimates.
The Seaboard Triumph project, the single largest private investment in Sioux City's history, was announced in May 2015.
Seaboard Triumph is a joint venture between two leading pork producers -- Guymon, Oklahoma-based Seaboard Foods and St. Joseph, Missouri-based Triumph Foods. Under the agreement, Seaboard and Triumph each would be responsible for supplying a third of that number, leaving about 1 million hogs to be purchased on the open market, which industry experts say will be a boon to independent producers.
The Sioux City project, the single largest investment in Sioux City history, was announced in May 2015 and the company broke ground that fall. Hundreds of temporary construction workers were deployed to the site, creating a big economic boost to the region.
In addition to increasing its staff, STF leaders have openly discussed possible physical expansions to the plant.
The STF facility occupies 251 acres in the city's Bridgeport West Business Park, bounded roughly by Interstate 29 to the east, the Missouri River to the west and Sioux Gateway Airport to the south. The current plant has 22 acres under roof and Porter has noted there’s ample room to grow.
“The community and local and state leadership has been so supportive and welcoming. I’m grateful for that and proud to call Siouxland our home,” he said. “We look forward to the years ahead as we continue to be community partners.”
The new factory's initial annual payroll in excess of $50 million, as well as spending on 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.
Triumph Foods is owned by five member-owned pork producers with operations in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, Kansas, Illinois and Oklahoma. Seaboard Foods, a unit of Seaboard Corp., a large publicly-traded diversified company, owns hog farms in Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and Texas and processes more than 5 million hogs a year at its Guymon, Oklahoma, plant.
Seaboard Foods and Triumph Foods have cooperated on several ventures in the past year. Seaboard, for example, markets and sells pork produced by Triumph to domestic and international markets.
If the two firms were considered a single combined entity, they would rank as the second-largest hog producer, a top 5 U.S. pork processor, and one of the nation's leading exporters of pork, according to company figures.
