07/27/05 Agri-Beef expands

Washington Beef LLC processing plant is expanding and upgrading its facilities. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll have some detail in one minute. Agri Beef, parent company of Washington Beef LLC had announced possible plant expansion plans at the end of last year. Keeping on track with those plans the Washington Beef plant in Toppenish, Washington has three areas of upgrades at different stages of development. One project, the modernization of the rendering facilities has been completed. Increasing the cooler capacity to 1,800 carcasses should be finished by August 1st and updates to the processing floor are now being reviewed by company ownership. This is sure better news than hearing of packing plants that are processing less cattle and are facing limited working hours and possible employee layoffs. Rick Stott, Agri Beef vice president for business development says "we're in the Northwest for the long term." This $21 million expansion allows Agri Beef to look to the future with increased plant efficiency and assurances of meeting the company's high quality standards. The Washington Beef plant is HACCP-certified and should receive its ISO certification soon. Now I don't have time to explain these acronyms the way they were explained to me but rest assured they are important designations concerning food safety. All this expansion and modernization will allow the company to meet future demands. What is the reason for more demands in the future? I'll tell you more about those increase demands on tomorrow's program. I'm Jeff Keane.