JBS USA subsidiary Swift Prepared Foods has opened a $200 million, 325,000-sq-ft Principe Foods facility, which will produce Italian meats and charcuterie, in Columbia, Mo. The company decided the new facility was necessary to meet increasing retail and foodservice demand for Italian meats and charcuterie.
Thus far, the new site has created 100 new jobs in the region. The company expects to hire 100 to 200 more people over the next year.
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Swift Prepared Foods entrusted Stellar, a fully integrated design, engineering, construction, refrigeration, and mechanical services firm, with imagining and executing the high-efficiency, automated facility, which is divided into three distinct areas running east to west through the building: (1) a raw ingredients receiving, inspection, and manufacturing area, (2) fermenting and drying areas that are separated into designated spaces for prosciutto and salami, and (3) ready-to-eat (RTE) areas that include product peeling and packing.
Stellar also designed and constructed two employee welfare areas on either side of the expansive facility to separate the “raw” side personnel from RTE personnel. On the west side of the building with the RTE products, visitors can find Swift’s main office building, which houses a small pilot testing plant for new products and an Italian café-inspired show kitchen for customers.
“Stellar’s team brings wide-ranging experience across a variety of industries to the table, allowing us to present outside-the-box solutions to different circumstances. We pride ourselves in our ability to overcome obstacles in the best ways possible,” says Jim Oko, director of process development at Stellar. “This project was a full team effort, and we coordinated quickly to ensure Swift’s schedule was not held up by project challenges.”
