Groundbreaking ceremonies were held Tuesday at the site of the new JBS Prepared Foods plant in Perry
JBS USA Corporate Communications Director Nikki Richardson welcomed the group to eh late-morning wind and drizzle
Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship Sec. Mike Naig, straining to be heard over the earth-moving equipment nearby, congratulated all the stakeholders in the project.
“I want to thank JBS for continuing the great investment in Iowa, and congratulations to the Perry community and Dallas County and to everyone involved,” Naig said. “Godspeed to everyone who will take this project from a plan to reality as we see it happening today.”
Perry Mayor Dirk Cavanaugh thanked JBS as well as the local people in Perry who helped to close the deal and the county and state and partners whose assistance was also crucial.
“It’s a great day Perry,” Cavanaugh said. “JBS’ investment will bring a lot of opportunity to town. It will bring good jobs back to Perry.”
JBS USA CEO Wesley Batista Filho shared the enthusiasm of Naig and Cavanaugh.
“We’re very excited about this project,” Filho said. “It’s very important to us. It’s a new state-of-the-art facility. It’s our first sausage facility here in the U.S., and it’s a plant that’s going to add a lot of value to our current pork operations.”
He said the $135 million plant will eventually produce 130 millions pounds of sausage a year, “enough to feed 4 million Americans a year,” and the company’s newly acquired Ankeny facility “is actually going to help this plant with demand because we’re going to send sausage from here to cook up there, so it’s actually going to make the ramp up of this facility faster.”
Additional congratulatory remarks were delivered by U.S. Rep. Zack Nunn, Iowa Economic Development Authority Director Debi Durham and Greater Dallas County Development Alliance Director Rachel Wacker.
In the crowd were various members of the Perry Economic Development Inc., Perry City Council and Dallas County Board of Supervisors.