11/22/06 Thanksgiving 2006

11/22/06 Thanksgiving 2006

New Beef Plant The possibility of a new beef processing plant has created some negative responses. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be back right after this to fill you in on the complaints. A new $200 million beef processing plant that could be built in Texas County, Oklahoma has one industry analyst wondering about its impact on other beef processing plants in the area. The 650,000 square foot plant that could process around 5,000 cattle per day and employ between 2,500 and 3,000 workers is the plan of Smithfield Beef Group, Inc., Green Bay, Wisconsin and ContiGroup Companies, New York. This plant would be the first of its size to be built in the United Sates in the last twenty years. J. P. Morgan Chase analyst, Pablo E. Zaunic thinks this new plant would add too much competition to existing facilities in Texas, Colorado and Kansas. Zaunic figures the new plant would add about 3.6 percent to the industry's capacity and that would be a negative situation for existing beef processing plants. You know, years ago the large beef packing plants of today with their greater efficiencies that could afford the cost of new government regulations and procurement of the majorities of cattle supplies caused many small processing plants to close. This may be a case of the big fish getting eaten by a bigger fish. If healthy competition is hindered, the new plant won't help the beef industry as a whole and that would be a detriment. I'm Jeff Keane. Western Livestock Reporter 10/15/06
Previous Report11/21/06 Cattle-Fax analyst on 2007
Next Report11/24/06 We care