Jobs boost after $300m investment in new US poultry plant

Up to 1,500 new jobs are to be created in the southern American state of Arkansas following an announcement by Simmons Prepared Foods that it is to invest $300m a new chicken facility.

The family-owned firm said the new jobs would bring total employment at the operation in Benton county to more than 2,300 and would create new contact with local Arkansas farmers.

The plant will produce fresh and frozen chicken products for retail and restaurant customers with capacity to sell approximately 850 million pounds of poultry meat annually at full production.

Todd Simmons, Simmons Foods CEO, said he was delighted to bring the project, which is expected to start in 2019, to Arkansas: “This project positions us to continue meeting our customers’ demands.”

Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson welcomed the announcement: “Simmons Foods is a home-grown company that continues to invest in north west Arkansas. We competed with both Oklahoma and Missouri for this project and I’m proud to say we won.”

Simmons’s existing operations in the area include a feed mill, hatchery, propane business, business offices and a chicken processing facility, along with a dry pet food production facility.

Simmons began offering chicken raised without the use of antibiotics earlier this year. In 2018 it will begin offering No Antibiotics Ever (NAE) products.