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Sanderson Farms expands market reach with greenfield processing facility in North Carolina

The plant will eventually process 1.25 million birds every week, enabling the company to expand its deboning market target by 12 percent and serve a broader customer base.

Ergonomic systems like automated material handling and production processes protect workers at the new Sanderson Farms facility inn St. Pauls, NC.
Ergonomic systems like automated material handling and production processes protect workers at the new Sanderson Farms facility inn St. Pauls, NC.

A 180,000-square-foot poultry deboning facility that will enable Sanderson Farms, the nation’s third largest poultry processor, to expand its market reach into the Carolinas and the Northeast began operations January 10, just 24 months after the company began searching for a site.

The $155 million complex in St. Pauls, N.C., will ultimately employ a workforce of 1,100 when it becomes fully operational in 12-14 months. Combined with a new hatchery and an upgraded feedmill in nearby communities, it completes the integrated poultry processing ecosystem Sanderson Farms has built to serve the market. The plant will eventually process 1.25 million birds every week, enabling the company to expand its deboning market target by 12 percent and serve a broader customer base.

Sanderson Farms is the only U.S. poultry processor to have built multiple processing complexes since 1997. Headquartered in Mississippi and with $2.8 billion in annual sales, it operates 11 processing plants in five southeastern states with a capacity of more than 10.625 million chickens per week. The company employs more than 13,000 people.

“Our business strategy for the past 20 years has been to grow organically rather than through acquisitions, so we always start with greenfield plants,” says Bob “Pic” Billingsley, director of development and engineering. The St. Pauls plant, located in Robeson County in the southeastern part of the state, was his seventh for the company.

Billingsley and his team start with a lengthy checklist to determine whether a site will satisfy the company’s expectations, including sufficient land, a population large enough to meet workforce needs and access to major roads, electricity, gas and water.

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