Plant Tour
December 2018
JTM's new plant built for future growth
With the opening this year of a new production facility, JTM Food Group in Harrison, Ohio, embarked on a new chapter of growth. What began as a modest more...
September 2018
Video: A look at Bell & Evans new chick feeders
Bell & Evans chicks now feed from a new type of feeder. Designed in France, it takes the shape of a narrow, inverted clamshell that hangs just above more...
Video: A look at Bell & Evans high-tech 'chick limo'
The baby birds' pampering continues in transport to the broiler farm on high-tech trucks that Bell & Evans calls “chick limos” because more...
January 2018
Plenty of room, with a view: CS Beef Packers (VIDEO)
Brand-new beef plants don't come along often. So when Hereford, Texas-based Caviness Beef Packers and Boise, Idaho-based J.R. Simplot Co. teamed to build more...
November 2017
Processor honors employees, town with all-day festival (video)
It began as a way to honor its handful of employees after serving the tiny farming community of Fayetteville, Ill., for 30 years. It wound up being much more...
May 2017
Devault Foods shifts direction
The Philadelphia area's Devault Foods has a rich history that began with a dairy farm, evolved to a one-room butcher operation and today is a leading more...
April 2017
On the Inside: Vermont Packinghouse
The following plant tour of Vermont Packinghouse was presented as a new way for Meatingplace to engage our community via Twitter. It's essentially long-form more...
March 2017
Vermont Packinghouse: Boosting the local economy
Arion Thiboumery isn’t a big-city guy. The California native earned his doctorate in sustainable agriculture and rural development. So it’s more...
August 2016
Profile: The wizard of aha's
Editor's Note: This is part of a multimedia package that examines the growing consciousness among consumers for sustainable food — and how more...
January 2016
Keeping it clean: Perdue's removal of antibiotics in hatcheries
The last part of the process of removing the use of antibiotics in chicken production at Perdue Farms, an effort that began 13 years ago, is doing so more...
August 2015
Steve Olson on IMPS, their history and those pesky Latin terms
As he prepares to helm his last few Center of the Plate training session for the North American Meat Institute, the irrepressible Steve Olson spoke with more...
April 2015
Sugar Creek's sous vide line
Watch Sugar Creek assemble the nation’s largest sous vide line in two minutes with this time-lapse video (provided by the company). The more...
December 2014
A tour of Agri Beef's ranch-to-table system
Agri Beef LLC has quietly built a vertically integrated system in the verdant Northwest, creating top-of-the-line beef products that benefit, executives more...
November 2014
Surlean expands in Dallas: A plant tour
Surlean Foods is based in San Antonio, Texas, but expanded into Dallas in 2010 to meet the needs of a customer. Its plant, however, has been designed more...
October 2014
From Italy, with love
When his consulting business proved unfulfilling, Greg Laketek asked himself what he was doing or thinking about when he was at his happiest. The answer: more...
February 2014
Empire Kosher Poultry
Empire Kosher Poultry was named after the state of New York when Joseph Katz founded it in 1938 in Liberty, N.Y. The company moved to the rolling hills more...
January 2014
Prestage Farms pushes bioenergy forward
Prestage Farms hasn't really made a name for itself, given that the Clinton, N.C.-based pork and turkey processor is strictly a private-label player and more...
November 2013
JTM Food Group: Marketing might
As the nation's third-largest supplier to the National School Lunch Program, JTM Food Group is surely a major meat processor. With other marketing channels more...
September 2013
Frischgeflügel: The fastest plant in the world (VIDEO)
CELLE, GERMANY –– One of Germany’s largest producers of fresh chicken – Frischgeflügel – has found a niche in the German more...
April 2013
Allen Harim: A conservative culture
Nearly 18 months after Korean food manufacturer Harim acquired Seaford, Del.-based Allen's Family Foods out of bankruptcy, the new company is slowly returning more...
March 2013
Exclusive tour of an Illinois prison's meat plant
VANDALIA, ILL. – There are “no lifers, no murderers,” the warden says. “Just run-of-the-mill crimes.” Battery. Drug offenses more...
February 2013
MP3 open sow housing video tour
The transition from gestation stalls to some form of group sow housing is a business decision. After visiting 15 open sow housing farms in Europe and more...
Cardinal Meat Specialists: Advancing to America
Cardinal Meat Specialists has a strong position in Canada with its capabilities in frozen hamburger patties and kettle cooking for national retail and more...
December 2012
West Liberty Foods: The leading-edge
West Liberty Foods, a key supplier of deli meats to the likes of Subway and Costco, is known for using pioneering technologies in its processing plants more...
King Kold rules
In a burg outside Dayton, Ohio, King Kold Quality Meats is, literally, a Main Street business that's booming. The processor manufactures hundreds of variations more...
November 2012
Beef Products Inc.: From leftovers to LFTB
Outside Sioux City, Beef Products Inc. has one plant still operating making lean finely textured beef — and plenty of room for the business growth more...
October 2012
Ohio company named Jewell Award winner
With early adoption in its blood, innovation is second nature at Ohio-based turkey processor Cooper Farms, recipient of the industry leadership award more...
September 2012
Succession plan
It’s a familiar story for small processors who are at a similar crossroads: At some point the owner has to make the choice to leave it to his kids more...
July 2012
Hotbed of innovation ... and niche sausages
Despite the fact that Wampler's Farm Sausage Co. in Lenoir City, Tenn., produces more than a million sausage patties a day — processed and packaged more...
June 2012
John Soules Foods heats up
John Soules Foods founder John Soules Sr. wasn’t shy about the prospects for “The Fajita Company’s” growth, which is why he built more...
May 2012
Rastelli Foods keeps a lot of balls in the air
Rastelli Foods handles a wide array of products from a wide array of species, and processes them for an exceptionally wide array of customers, from military more...
March 2012
AVA takes 'old school' back to the future, right to the bank
The further time moves into the 21st century, the more consumers seem to want to go back in time to a presumably simpler time, when you knew the market's more...
February 2012
Best Chicago's product catalog is a true variety show
Best Chicago Meats Co. is organized so as to produce a wide variety of goods under a number of different brand names, some halal, some not. In order to more...
January 2012
An Inside Look at Cargill's Wichita Innovation Center
Cargill has eight so-called Innovation Centers worldwide. Its newest, in downtown Wichita, focuses on protein research and development (though not on more...
November 2011
AdvancePierre Foods takes the competition to school
AdvancePierre Foods, based in Cincinnati, is a market-leading processor in a number of specialties, including sandwiches, stuffed chicken breasts and more...
October 2011
GNP's automatic Arcadia
GNP Company’s mantra is continuous improvement, and the firm’s Arcadia, Wis., poultry processing plant is a prime example. In the past year more...
September 2011
State-of-the-art slicing capability
This summer, Sara Lee Corp. opened a state-of-the-art 200,000-square-foot plant in Kansas City, Kan., where nearly 40 robotics systems at the facility more...
July 2011
Nation's first HPP toll processor
Founded in June 2004, the American Pasteurization Company in Milwaukee has been using high-pressure processing (HPP) technology for everything from fruits more...
June 2011
West Liberty Foods: Cutting-edge processing
Amid the low, rolling hills of east-central Iowa, family farms have remained largely unchanged since they were founded generations ago. Yet beneath the more...
April 2011
Dakota Provisions: Two plants in one
Dakota Provisions Inc. reaps profits from a fresh side of the business and a second, ready-to-eat side, as many processors do. Dakota Provisions, however more...
March 2011
Lopez Foods: Precision, precision, precision
Lopez Foods Inc. supplies beef to McDonald’s and sausage to McDonald's, Burger King, Sonic, Costco, Wal-Mart, Kroger and others across a large section more...
January 2011
Casademont in Spain: Drying salami faster than ever
With more than 50 years of experience, Casademont is a Spanish meat company that fabricates traditional Spanish cured products, plus a wide range of cooked more...
November 2010
RMH Foods plant tour
RMH Foods is working to match the success frozen entrée brands like Lean Cuisine, Healthy Choice and Smart Ones have had in the frozen food aisle more...
October 2010
OK Foods: More than just OK
OK Foods Inc.’s Fort Smith, Ark., poultry processing facility is not your ordinary plant, evidenced by its use of extraordinary technology. This more...
May 2010
American Beef Packers: A brighter future
American Beef Packers in Chino, Calif., is seeing some sunshine after emerging from some cloudy history. Its owners, Arizona cattlemen Marvin Roberts more...
April 2010
Brandt Beef: 'Old school' processing for new customers
Eric Brandt is a picky guy. No, not the kind of guy that asks for no tomato on his hamburger; the kind who cares about things like the appearance more...
March 2010
Esposito's Sausage: Good stuff from a small space
Every processor has its environmental challenges, but few deal with the challenge of four floors of residential apartments directly overhead, or managing more...
December 2009
Red meat plant tour: Calumet Diversified Meats
At Calumet Diversified Meats, "diversified" is their middle name. But it is not central to their strategy. In fact, Calumet Diversified is focused more...
November 2009
Hormel Foods: From Spam to pepperoni and beyond
The statistics for Hormel Foods' flagship processing plant in Austin, Minn., are impressive, to say the least.Opened in 1982, the facility encompasses more...
October 2009
PHOTO ESSAY: Smithfield: ham and a whole lot more
For many an average American, Smithfield, Va., is synonymous with the hams they grew up eating at Christmas and Easter. And with good reason; Smithfield more...
September 2009
Byron Center Meats rises from the ashes
Two years ago, Byron Center Meats in Byron Center, Mich., suffered a damaging fire — a potential disaster that seems to be striking more companies more...
August 2009
Kayem Foods: Old world tradition meets modern technology
Kayem Foods is celebrating its 100th anniversary in 2009, but its focus is firmly on the future. The family-owned, Chelsea, Mass.-based meats company more...
July 2009
Quantum Foods: A leap forward
The sign on the facade of Quantum Foods' headquarters in Bolingbrook, Ill., says, "Great Steaks!" But that's not exactly telling the whole story. Founded more...
April 2009
Greater Omaha Packing: Single-minded success
Greater Omaha Packing Co., the nation's sixth-largest beef packer, has remained a single-plant operation since it was founded in 1920 by current CEO Henry more...
March 2009
Allonco Inc.: Starting from scratch
If it weren't for the freshly painted black letters on an otherwise nondescript, narrow red door, one of many on this bricky, blue-collar stretch of Chicago's more...
Jonesboro plant spotlights Butterball's safety focus
In the last 10 years, Butterball LLC's Jonesboro, Ark., further processing facility has created, nourished and propelled a people-safety-first mentality more...
January 2009
PHOTO ESSAY: Uruguayan meatpacker takes a global view
Frigorífico Carlos Schneck was founded in June of 1936 near Montevideo, Uruguay, by Carlos Schneck and his wife, María Pydd. Since then the company has more...
December 2008
Fred Usinger Inc.: The best of the wurst
Fred Usinger Inc. is headquartered on the same site where the company began in 1880 when German immigrant Frederick Usinger bought a small butcher shop more...
November 2008
Lincoln Provision Inc.: Breaking cattle and beyond
Lincoln Provision Inc. may be proud of its location near the former site of the legendary Chicago stockyards, but the company is definitely not stuck more...
PHOTO ESSAY: Waste not, want not at Sanderson Farms
When Sanderson Farms in 2005 built a new plant in Moultrie, Ga., the company knew there was one thing it wouldn't have to purchase from the local municipality: more...
October 2008
Photo essay: Inside Coleman's kingly delight
Kings Delight, a Gainesville, Ga.-based further processing operation, became part of the Coleman Natural Foods' portfolio in August 2006. Since that time more...
PHOTO ESSAY: Premium Protein Products
Lincoln, Neb.-based Premium Protein Products is "the biggest little company you've never heard of," according to Chairman and President Steve Sands. He more...
September 2008
For Dutch Valley, processing veal is an old-school art (with a new school twist)
In South Holland, Ill., the facilities for Dutch Valley Veal, Dutch Valley Foods and Brown Packing Co. are but a stone's throw from some of the company's more...
August 2008
North Country Smokehouse: Small processor, big-name customers
Don't let North Country Smokehouse's appearance fool you. The Claremont, N.H.-based processor may be tucked away in a small town. It may employ only about more...
May 2008
PHOTO ESSAY: Ed Miniat Inc.'s customized philosophy
South Holland, Ill.-based Ed Miniat Inc. is a fourth generation custom processor of fully cooked, whole-muscle meat products for foodservice and frozen more...
March 2008
PHOTO ESSAY: Odom’s Tennessee Pride teaches old plant new tricks
Building a state-of-the-art plant from the ground up is the dream of many a meat processor. In reality, however, working in and around existing structures more...
February 2008
Photo Essay: Wayne Farms R&D center cooks up customer solutions
As the millennium changed, Oakwood, Ga.-based Wayne Farms LLC recognized the need to physically create a dedicated research and development wing and dubbed more...
January 2008
PHOTO ESSAY: American Beef steels itself for growth
What's in a name? For Chihuahua, Mexico-based American Beef, established in 1993, the name created distance between an emerging company priding itself more...
December 2007
PHOTO ESSAY: West Liberty Foods debuts Utah slicing facility
West Liberty, Iowa-based West Liberty Foods in 2006 faced a welcome, but nevertheless difficult, challenge: The company's slicing facility had nearly more...
