Slaughter Equipment

Sioux City pork plant slaughters first hogs

"They’re going slowly to test their equipment... the pork producers were in town and we met with them last night and they said they saw them kill a hundred hogs," Scott told the Journal editorial board Thursday Slaughter Equipment.

The 925,000-square-foot plant, which will start with a single shift and up to 900 production workers, will have the capacity to process about 10,500 hogs per day initially. Two-thirds of the animals will come from the plant owners, a joint venture between Guymon, Oklahoma-based Seaboard Foods and St. Joseph, Missouri-based Triumph Foods. The rest would be purchased on the open market from independent producers.

The $300 million plant, announced in May 2015, has been under construction for nearly two years in Sioux City’s Bridgeport West Industrial Park.

“We are testing equipment to make sure that everything is going smoothly on the line and calibrating equipment,” Seaboard Triumph Foods spokesperson Tori O’Connell said Thursday. “We have a lot of state-of-the-art technology in there — a very technologically advanced facility — (and we’re) making sure those machines are set to proper specs Slaughter Equipment.”

O'Connell confirmed commercial production is set to begin on Sept. 5, the day after Labor Day.

To operate its first shift at full capacity, Seaboard Triumph needs about 900 hourly workers, along with 200 office staff.

While metro Sioux City’s unemployment rate remains at historic lows, Scott said he has heard the company has been making steady progress on the hiring front Slaughter Equipment.

“I had breakfast with Terry Holton and Mark Campbell — the two CEOs of the parent companies — and they told me that day, which was three or four weeks ago, that they had 521 or so employees they were going through the process of getting physicals for,” Scott told the Journal editorial board.