Sanderson Farms Inc. announced that a site located in the town of St. Pauls and Robeson County, N.C. has been selected for construction of a new poultry processing plant and waste water treatment facility, and that the company has sites under consideration for a new hatchery. These facilities will comprise a state-of-the-art poultry complex with the capacity to process 1.25 million birds per week for the big bird deboning market. At full capacity, the complex will employ approximately 1,100 people, will require 100 contract growers, and will be equipped to process and sell approximately 500 million pounds of dressed poultry meat annually at full production.
Sanderson Farms expects to invest approximately $139 million in the new North Carolina complex, which includes upgrades to its Kinston, N.C. feed mill, and anticipates that associated contract growers will invest an additional $168 million in poultry production facilities. The company expects to begin construction of the facilities this summer, with initial operations of the new complex to begin during the fourth fiscal quarter of 2016.