AMARILLO, TX – Multi-million dollar cattle processing facilities are moving forward in both Nebraska and Texas with Producer Owned Beef, LLC, Amarillo, announcing it has been awarded $12.2 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund for its project. Those incentives are in addition to up to $11.1 million from the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation (ARDC) and the city of Amarillo approved earlier.
Producer Owned Beef is a business cooperative. The company’s majority equity owners are cattle ranchers and feeders. As owners of the company, producers will receive a percentage of wholesale beef prices for the cattle they supply and a share of the profits from the plant. The company says it will source cattle primarily from the High Plains region.
The $670 million facility will have a 3,000-plus head per day processing capacity. Producer Owned Beef is expected to employ 1,600 workers once operational by late 2025 with a payroll of about $120 million annually
“Many of our ranchers and feeders are third-, fourth- or even fifth-generation producers who have invested their lives in feeding Americans,” said Monte Cluck, a Producer Owned Beef Board Member. “With this model, where producers are also owners, we’re creating economic sustainability for small and medium-sized producers by ensuring they receive a greater share of the financial upside for the hard work they do.”
The plant is expected to break ground in the first quarter of 2023, with the goal of being fully operable by fall of 2025.
Producer Owned Beef representatives say that around 28% of the nation’s fed beef supply is within a 150-mile radius of Amarillo. And while Texas ranks No. 1 in cattle feeding, it ranks No. 3 in fed cattle processing, behind Nebraska and Kansas. They believe that points to opportunity for another beef processing plant.
Currently, Cargill, Tyson Foods, JBS and National Beef Packing harvest approximately 80% of the beef produced in the United States, with some of these major companies having facilities in the Amarillo or Texas Panhandle area.
For more information on Producer Owned Beef, including the executive team and goals of the project, visit www.producerownedbeef.com and see them on Facebook
