Trim-Rite Food Corp., based in Carpentersville, IL, an expanding pork processor, has stated plans to purchase the bankrupt Meadowbrook Farms cooperative in Rantoul, IL, according to company officials.
Meadowbrook closed in 2009. The Rantoul plant was built in 2004 for $24 million, comprised of contributions from 200 cooperative producer members and bank loans guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Trim-Rite President James Jendrucczek told an Illinois newspaper that the Rantoul site was selected because operations there could start six months sooner than at a location in DeKalb, IL, that it was also considering.
“It’s a bigger facility that allows pork processing and pork slaughtering,” Jendrucczek told the Rock River Times. “It’s an excellent facility, and the plant is only six years old.” The $700,000, state-of-the-art facility was projected to eventually slaughter and process 16,000 hogs/week.
The new plant is expected to employ about 200 workers, compared with about 600 workers at Meadowbrook before it closed.
Trim-Rite operates a pork boning business in a 75,000-sq.-ft. plant in Carpentersville that it built in 2002.