Cargill Meat Solutions will add 300 employees during a $50 million expansion of the company’s Fresno, Calif., beef processing facility.
The Business Journal reports the already existing plant uses 87 diesel-powered refrigerated trailers for cold storage that will be replaced by a new 80,000 square-feet cold storage unit. The ground beef area of the plant will triple in size from 22,400 square-feet to 67,200 square-feet.
New water wells will also be added to plant to replace existing wells that have high nitrate levels.
Cargill will handle hides differently at the updated plant. Instead of shipping hides to Modesto the work will be done internally which will keep $2 million in the Fresno community.
The expansion of Cargill’s plant should be seen as a bright spot for California beef producers in an otherwise bleak year that has seen the closing of a major packing facility in Brawley and an ongoing drought that has been difficult for cow-calf operators to manage.
