Cattlemen’s Heritage Beef plant aims to bring billions in revenue to Iowa
The Cattlemen's Heritage Beef plant planned to be built in Mills County will bring in about $8 billion in revenue to Iowa through 2028.
The Cattlemen's Heritage Beef plant planned to be built in Mills County will bring in about $8 billion in revenue to Iowa through 2028.
The Cattlemen's Heritage Beef plant planned to be built in Mills County will bring in about $8 billion in revenue to Iowa through 2028.
Cattlemen's Heritage Beef Company plans to build a beef-processing plant in Mills County, Iowa, that could bring billions in revenue to the state.
The developer originally planned to break ground in 2022 but the pandemic made finding and engineering more difficult than predicted. The company now plans to start construction in the Spring with the backing of a new investor.
Karis Capital of Naples, Florida, is investing $150 million in the plant.
Lead developer on the project Chad Tentinger said the location of the plant is important to its success. It will be located on a northwest plot near Interstate 29 and Bunge Avenue.
"It is close to a major metro so we will have a workforce that is available to us," Tentinger said. "It's in the middle of all great shipping lanes and in the heart of the great Midwest cattle."
The executive director of the Mills County Economic Development Foundation Andrew Rainbolt said this processing plant has the potential to create further growth.
"Hopefully this is kind of a big domino that falls and helps attract other developments that will come right around it," Rainbolt said.
He believes it will become the biggest employer in Mills County after the closure of the Glenwood Resource Center.
Including construction, about 3,800 jobs would be created by the project. Eight hundred of them would be permanent jobs at the plant.
Rainbolt also believes the revenue stream would be beneficial to the area.
Cattlemen's contracted Creighton University to study the economic impact of the plant and the results showed $8 billion of revenue for the state of Iowa through 2028.
Tentinger said the processing plant would also give family-owned cattle farms a chance to be profitable by giving them another option for packing and access to the latest technology.
"We are running almost at full capacity in the Midwest, of capacity of the packing industry, and my hope is that this takes some pressure off because every time we have a hiccup in processing it recks the market," he said.
Cattlemen's is currently offering shackle spaces to producers.
Local businesses in the area hope the plant will also increase traffic and bring more customers into their stores.