Cargill moves burned Booneville operations to Nebraska

Cargill Value Added Meats has found a plant in Nebraska in which to locate the operations it lost when its Booneville plant was destroyed by fire.

More than 800 jobs were lost in Booneville when a March 2008 fire consumed most of the 150,000-square-foot meat processing facility. Cargill officials said in May they would not rebuild the plant, citing that it would take too long — 15 to 22 months — to get a new plant up and running. That time, according to Cargill officials, would allow competitors to capture customers.

An analysis by the University of Arkansas Center for Business and Economic Research in Fayetteville estimated the payroll loss at $18.3 million, with the loss of 800 jobs having a potential multiplier affect of 1,806 jobs lost in Logan County.

Cargill has purchased a Carneco Foods plant in Columbus, Neb., to house the operations once conducted in Booneville, according to a Dec. 14 report in the Columbus Telegram. Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman was part of the announcement.

The newspaper report noted: “Cargill Value Added Meats, a division of Cargill Inc., had been seeking a new operations facility following the destruction of its Booneville, Ark., plant by fire on Easter Sunday. Cargill was approached by Lopez Foods Inc., owner of Carneco, to purchase the Columbus facility, according to John O’Carroll, president of Cargill Value Added Meats.”

Despite what Cargill officials told the people of Booneville when explaining why they would not rebuild in Booneville, a Cargill official is quoted in the Columbus Telegram as saying the company had planned to build a new plant in Texas.

“We had planned to build a plant in Texas,” O’Carroll said, but instead Cargill chose to take advantage of a “beautiful plant in a great state that is pro-business with a tremendous workforce.”