Ozark Mountain Poultry Receives $3.5 Million For New Feed Mill, Plant

by KAIT Channel 8 ([email protected]) 688 views 

Content partner KAIT Ch. 8 in Jonesboro reports:

The CEO of Ozark Mountain Poultry (OMP) made an economic announcement in Batesville Saturday afternoon.

Ed Fryar said OMP is building a new feed mill in Magness and a new plant in Batesville.

The company received a $1.3 million federal grant for the new feed mill and a state grant for the new plant.

“One comes from EDA, that’s the federal government, the Economic Development Agency,” Fryar said. “The second grant that we received was $2.2 million. That’s AEDC, Arkansas Economic Development Commission and that comes from the state of Arkansas.”

These new facilities will bring in about 225 new jobs into the county.

Fryar said these facilities should be complete sometime around the end of the year.

In March, ConAgra officials closed a Batesville production plant laying off 250 workers. At that time, Ozark Mountain Poultry was in talks to take over the facility and incorporate its business in the region.

“We plan to retrofit the building to accommodate a new poultry processing line. This will allow us to expand rapidly and with minimal disruption to our current processing operation. Our target completion is scheduled for early 2016,” Ed Fryar, Ozark Mountain Poultry CEO, told Talk Business & Politics in March.

Fryar also added, “This investment is part of the company’s overall growth strategy. OMP is currently also constructing a new feed mill in Magness, Arkansas, to support its increased operations. The feed mill will be completed by early 2016 as well.”