Independent Processor's Prime Cuts
Thrushwood Farms’ big expansion plans
Thrushwood Farms Quality Meats Inc. recently announced a building expansion to accommodate growth in the meat snack and read-to-eat sector of the business. The company is adding 30,000 square feet of production and warehouse space to its current 27,400-square-foot facility. The addition will consist of offices, meeting space, production capacity, and warehouse storage. The expansion will provide the needed resources to develop innovative shelf stable meat snacks for their brand and their private label customers.
“We decided over a year ago that we needed to plan our next strategic move for our facility. After discussing our future and the future plans of customers we decided in January to move forward with the project,” says Doug Hankes, vice president of operations for the Galesburg, Ill.-based processor. “We feel like it is the right time for our company to be in the co-packaging space for ready to eat products and specifically shelf stable meat snacks.”
The new expansion will allow the company to produce a wider variety of meat based snacks and have additional throughput available to its customers.
“In addition we are going to be to offer both large and small companies a place where unique items can be fostered and brands can grow,” Hankes adds.
Thrushwood Farms hopes to be completely moved into the new expansion by January 2019, effectively doubling the size of its facility. After going through multiple expansions in the past, Hankes said the company realized its most recent expansions weren’t as large as they needed to be.
“As a result we needed to focus our next addition to be as a large as we thought makes sense,” he says.
A previous expansion was completed in 2013 at which time the meat snack category was beginning to see growth. Since that time, Thrushwood Farms has been able to capitalize on its knowledge to develop quality products such as snack sticks, meat bars, ground and formed jerky, and hybrid meat and vegetable-based snacks to expand their footprint throughout the United States and Canada. The company works closely with established private label customers, as well as start-up businesses to develop products with specific taste and nutrition in mind.
“Food Safety and Innovation are the pillars of our motto ‘Making memories out of meals,’” Hankes says. “This expansion will allow brands that entrust Thrushwood Farms with their products to continue to expand into new markets.”
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