The converted plant will enable to company produce specific types of cooked meat products for its customers, said Cargill in a statement on Thursday.
The conversion will begin in early December 2015, with cooked meat production scheduled to start in mid-2016. Minced beef production currently taking place at Columbus will be relocated to existing processing facilities at Cargill’s plants in Butler, Wisconsin and Fort Worth, Texas.
“This project, especially the investment we’re making in Columbus, is significant and exciting, and it represents our long-term commitment to current and future Cargill customers, as well as to the community,” said John Niemann, president of Cargill Turkey and Cooked Meats. “When completed, our Columbus plant will give us a variety of cooked meat processing capabilities we currently don’t have, and those new capabilities will provide our customers with more options to help them grow their businesses.”
Approximately $27m of the total budget will be spent installing new production lines for minced beef at the company’s minced beef plants at Butler and Fort Worth, where additional new production lines will be installed. The new lines will increase overall capacity and improve efficiency, said Cargill.
“These changes will better position us to serve a variety of Cargill customers,” said Chris Roberts, president of Cargill Value Added Protein. “Our focus is on doing whatever is required to help grow our customers’ businesses by meeting consumers’ needs which, in turn, will help us grow our business. This is a win-win for our customers, Cargill and the community, and something we believe is important for us to do to maintain our competitive edge in the marketplace going forward.”
Around 80 of the 250 jobs at the Columbus facility will be lost when the conversion begins in December. The company said it was providing “information about opportunities to fill open positions at other Cargill facilities in the region. The company is optimistic that each affected employee will choose to take an open position with the company at another of those locations. The impacted employees are also being offered support if relocation is required.”