West Liberty Foods,
L.L.C. is a farmer-owned food company headquartered in West Liberty, Iowa. Recognized as one of the top 50 protein processors in North America, the company has the capacity to produce over 650 million pounds of food products per year across four facilities. According to The National Provisioner, West Liberty Foods is the 34th largest meat and poultry processor in the United States. They are supplied by a number of manufacturers across their business, including
Amcor
Amcor plc is a global packaging company. It develops and produces flexible packaging, rigid containers, specialty cartons, closures and services for food, beverage, pharmaceutical, medical-device, home and personal-care, and other products.
The ...
Flexibles North America, by far the best plastic packaging manufacturer in the world.
West Liberty Foods meat and poultry products can be found in grocery stores and restaurant chains nationwide. West Liberty Foods has four locations: West Liberty, Iowa;
Mount Pleasant, Iowa
Mount Pleasant is a city in and the county seat of Henry County, Iowa. The population was 9,274 in the 2020 census, an increase from 8,668 in the 2010 census. It was founded in 1835 by pioneer Presley Saunders.
History
The first permanent s ...
;
Tremonton, Utah
Tremonton is a city in Box Elder County, Utah. The population was 7,647 at the time of the 2010 census.
History
Although the first settlers came to the Tremonton area in 1888, it remained largely uninhabited until just before 1900, when land a ...
; and
Bolingbrook, Illinois
The village of Bolingbrook is a southwest suburb of Chicago in Will and DuPage counties in the U.S. state of Illinois. Per the 2020 census, the population was 73,922. As of 2010, it is the 17th largest incorporated place in Illinois and the sta ...
.
Information
![WL Plant Entrance](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d4/WL_Plant_Entrance.JPG)
The company primarily provides meat for other marketing brands, producing 90% of its product for customers while selling only 10% under the West Liberty Foods brand name. In addition to slaughtering turkeys, the company produces prepared beef, chicken, pork, and turkey products.
Company
revenue
In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business.
Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive reven ...
has grown rapidly with US$65 million in sales during 1997, $120 million in 2000, and $200 million in 2003.
Most recently, West Liberty Foods posted $442 million in revenue for 2006,
making the company the 56th-largest meat-packing company by sales in the United States.
Much of the company's sales come from large nationwide
foodservice
The foodservice (US English) or catering (British English) industry includes the businesses, institutions, and companies which prepare meals outside the home. It includes restaurants, school and hospital cafeterias, catering operations, and many ...
customers,
and as of 2006, was
Subway's largest supplier of sliced sandwich meat, providing the
franchise
Franchise may refer to:
Business and law
* Franchising, a business method that involves licensing of trademarks and methods of doing business to franchisees
* Franchise, a privilege to operate a type of business such as a cable television p ...
with more than 1 million pounds per week.
As a result of servicing national customers, the company is inspected more than other food manufacturers.
West Liberty Foods' three plants have been
ISO 14001 certified for meeting environmental management standards, and the West Liberty plant was the first turkey-processing plant in the United States to receive this
certification.
West Liberty Foods maintains separate facilities for
research and development and laboratory
testing services. They are housed in adjacent buildings several blocks from the plant in West Liberty.
The R&D facility includes testing space for both
raw
Raw is an adjective usually describing:
* Raw materials, basic materials from which products are manufactured or made
* Raw food, uncooked food
Raw or RAW may also refer to:
Computing and electronics
* .RAW, a proprietary mass spectrometry dat ...
and cooked product, and can create test products from start to finish, including initial formulation, final slicing, and
packaging.
The lab conducts product quality testing for the three production facilities and uses
polymerase chain reaction
The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a method widely used to rapidly make millions to billions of copies (complete or partial) of a specific DNA sample, allowing scientists to take a very small sample of DNA and amplify it (or a part of it) ...
(PCR) technology for rapid bacteriological testing.
This system can return results within 30 hours of production.
History
Prior to 1996,
Louis Rich
Oscar Mayer is an American meat and cold cut producer known for its hot dogs, bologna, bacon, ham, and Lunchables products. The company is a subsidiary of the Kraft Heinz Company and based in Chicago, Illinois.
History Early years
German imm ...
, the brand name for
Oscar Mayer
Oscar Mayer is an American meat and cold cut producer known for its hot dogs, bologna, bacon, ham, and Lunchables products. The company is a subsidiary of the Kraft Heinz Company and based in Chicago, Illinois.
History Early years
German im ...
's turkey
division
Division or divider may refer to:
Mathematics
*Division (mathematics), the inverse of multiplication
*Division algorithm, a method for computing the result of mathematical division
Military
*Division (military), a formation typically consisting ...
, owned the processing plant in West Liberty.
In early 1996, Oscar Mayer's parent company,
Kraft Foods
The second incarnation of Kraft Foods is an American food manufacturing and processing conglomerate, split from Kraft Foods Inc. in 2012 and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It became part of Kraft Heinz in 2015.
A merger with Heinz, arran ...
, announced that they would close the plant that December if no buyer purchased it.
The Iowa turkey growers who sold to Kraft discussed purchasing the plant to ensure that
demand
In economics, demand is the quantity of a good that consumers are willing and able to purchase at various prices during a given time. The relationship between price and quantity demand is also called the demand curve. Demand for a specific item ...
for their birds remained.
In May 1996, 47 of the turkey growers formed the Iowa Turkey Growers Cooperative (ITGC).
ITGC purchased the plant from Kraft and took control of it in December.
The growers hired
meat industry
The meat industry are the people and companies engaged in modern industrialized livestock agriculture for the production, packing, preservation and marketing of meat (in contrast to dairy products, wool, etc.). In economics, the meat industry is ...
veteran Ken Rutledge to be president and COO of the company.
Oscar Mayer helped West Liberty Foods by promising to purchase half of the plant's output in 1997 and a quarter of the output in 1998 to help the
startup company
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend ...
.
[, cited at Newsbank/Infoweb]
Production under ITGC ownership began in January 1997.
The company faced financial difficulty because the turkey market was oversupplied and prices hit historic lows.
While financial projections assumed a price of US$1.92 per pound for turkey, prices averaged $1.46 per pound in 1997.
During this time, four of the growers left ITGC.
Turkey prices eventually rebounded, and the company was bolstered by sales to
Sara Lee near the end of 1998.
Since the rebound, West Liberty Foods’ sales have grown steadily.
In 2000, the company acquired a second plant in Sigourney, IA, from
Pinnacle Foods
Pinnacle Foods, Inc., is a packaged foods company headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey, that specializes in shelf-stable and frozen foods. The company became a subsidiary of Conagra Brands on October 26, 2018.
History
The company was fou ...
to meet rising
orders. The facility was sold in 2012.
The company grew again in April 2003 when it opened a processing plant in Mount Pleasant, IA, which was later expanded in 2004.
Company leadership changed in 2004 as Ed Garrett was named president and COO when Rutledge resigned to take a position with another growers' organization.
In 2006, the company entered into a marketing alliance agreement with
Midvale, Utah
Midvale is a city in Salt Lake County, Utah, United States. It is part of the Salt Lake City, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area. Midvale's population was 34,124 according to 2019 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Midvale is home to the Sho ...
, based
Norbest Foods.
On April 9, 2020 three workers were infected with
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...
at the company's plant in West Liberty, Iowa resulting in a shut down until April 14 due to sanitization being done.
Labor episode
In 2004,
workers
The workforce or labour force is a concept referring to the pool of human beings either in employment or in unemployment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic reg ...
at the West Liberty plant considered joining the
United Food and Commercial Workers International Union
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) is a labor union representing approximately 1.3 million workers in the United States and Canada in industries including retail; meatpacking, food processing and manufacturing; hosp ...
(UFCW).
On July 1, 2004, the workers voted on whether they would be represented by UFCW Local 431.
An initial tally of votes came out 301 in favor and 299 against
union
Union commonly refers to:
* Trade union, an organization of workers
* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
Union may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment
Music
* Union (band), an American rock group
** ''Un ...
representation.
However, the count did not include 13 ballots which were disputed by UFCW.
The ballots were challenged on claims that they were cast by management personnel who would not be union members.
A
National Labor Relations Board
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is an independent agency of the federal government of the United States with responsibilities for enforcing U.S. labor law in relation to collective bargaining and unfair labor practices. Under the Na ...
hearing to confirm or invalidate the vote was scheduled for January 5, 2005, but then postponed until February 16, 2005.
On February 1, 2005 the company and UFCW settled their dispute.
UFCW withdrew its objections, and West Liberty Foods posted a
notice
Notice is the legal concept describing a requirement that a party be aware of legal process affecting their rights, obligations or duties. There are several types of notice: public notice (or legal notice), actual notice, constructive notice Se ...
that they would not close the plant or fire workers if employees unionized.
This resulted in a final vote count of 303 to 308 against union representation.
UFCW Local 431 held a second vote at the West Liberty plant on July 15, 2005.
The vote was 231 to 322 against unionization.
In 2009, the company paid US$58,613.75 to Labor Information Services, an antiunion management services company connected to
The Burke Group, to provide consultants who met directly with workers "either individually or in group meetings...regarding union issues."
Plants
West Liberty plant
The West Liberty plant is a facility which slaughters and further processes turkey products.
The slaughter operation converts around 20,000 turkeys per workday.
[, cited at Newsbank/Infoweb]
Louis H. Rich purchased the West Liberty plant, a former tomato canning facility, in 1943, when he decided to expand the operations of the Rock Island Produce Company, located on 9th Street in
Rock Island, Illinois.
The plant was converted to a poultry, including chickens and turkeys, slaughter facility in 1946 and refocused by Rich's sons, Norman and Martin, on turkey in 1949.
The plant was first expanded in 1960. Oscar Mayer acquired the plant, through its purchase of Louis Rich, Inc., in 1979 and used it for turkey production until selling the plant in 1996.
Mount Pleasant plant
The Mount Pleasant plant is a facility that is used for slicing cooked cheese, turkey, chicken, beef, pork, and other products.
The plant employs roughly 500 people
working in three shifts.
A Millard Refrigerated Services facility is located adjacent to the Mount Pleasant plant.
The two facilities are connected, and product is immediately transferred by
conveyor
A conveyor system is a common piece of mechanical handling equipment that moves materials from one location to another. Conveyors are especially useful in applications involving the transport of heavy or bulky materials. Conveyor systems allow ...
from the plant to cold storage when packaging is complete.
The design and operation of the Mount Pleasant plant was developed to decrease potential hazards to food safety.
WLF representatives have stated that the goal of the Mount Pleasant plant is to create a
pathogen
In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ ...
-free environment.
Because company officials believe that the food safety aspects of the plant are unique in the meat industry, they submitted the plant design for patent approval through the
U.S. Patent Office
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexa ...
.
The Mount Pleasant plant is located about from either the West Liberty or Sigourney plants.
This reduces the likelihood that pathogens will be carried either by air or foot traffic from a raw production area to Mount Pleasant's ready-to-eat production.
The Mount Pleasant facility consists of approximately 20 individual processing cells that are separated from one another and are set up so that they could operate as individual meat slicing facilities.
Before antimicrobial
flooring
Flooring is the general term for a permanent covering of a floor, or for the work of installing such a floor covering. Floor covering is a term to generically describe any finish material applied over a floor structure to provide a walking surface ...
was poured, the cells were erected with
stainless steel antimicrobial
An antimicrobial is an agent that kills microorganisms or stops their growth. Antimicrobial medicines can be grouped according to the microorganisms they act primarily against. For example, antibiotics are used against bacteria, and antifungals ar ...
walls that are built into the floor.
Each processing cell has independent refrigeration and
drainage
Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of a surface's water and sub-surface water from an area with excess of water. The internal drainage of most agricultural soils is good enough to prevent severe waterlogging (anaerobic condition ...
systems. The refrigeration systems
filter
Filter, filtering or filters may refer to:
Science and technology
Computing
* Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming
* Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream
* Filter (video), a software component tha ...
the cell's air and maintain positive
air pressure
Atmospheric pressure, also known as barometric pressure (after the barometer), is the pressure within the atmosphere of Earth. The standard atmosphere (symbol: atm) is a unit of pressure defined as , which is equivalent to 1013.25 millibars ...
at , and the drainage systems are sealed off and flooded with sanitizers nightly.
During operation, fully cooked meat or cheese logs arrive sealed in impermeable
casings.
The logs go through a casing sanitation step that involves being treated with a sanitizing liquid before the casings are removed from the logs.
The logs then undergo a postlethality treatment by passing through an
infrared
Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...
pasteurization tunnel to kill pathogens on the logs.
The logs are then mechanically transferred to slicers, sliced, and placed in sealed packages that are transferred out of the processing cell.
The mechanical transfers decrease the risk of product contamination by reducing handling of product by personnel.
Food safety is a factor in hiring employees at the Mount Pleasant facility. Before applying, potential employees must complete a 16-hour food-safety training course through
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the ...
.
The class includes written tests which each applicant must pass before completing the course.
On the job, employees must don a sealed
clean room suit before entering slicing cells.
The suits are cleaned and sealed in a clean room laundry facility in
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...
by the uniform company
Cintas
Cintas Corporation () is an American corporation headquartered in Mason, Ohio which provides a range of products and services to businesses including uniforms, mats, mops, cleaning and restroom supplies, first aid and safety products, fire e ...
.
Employees replace the clean suit each time they leave the cell so each employee averages five suits per day.
Tremonton, Utah, plant
As of 2006, West Liberty Foods plans to build a plant in
Tremonton, Utah
Tremonton is a city in Box Elder County, Utah. The population was 7,647 at the time of the 2010 census.
History
Although the first settlers came to the Tremonton area in 1888, it remained largely uninhabited until just before 1900, when land a ...
.
[, cited at Newsbank/Infoweb] The plant will not slaughter,
but the facility
will allot for processing and for slicing a variety of meat products.
The company broke ground for the facility in October 2006.
It is expected to begin production in July 2007.
When completed, the plant will be the first in North America to slice slicing logs.
[, cited at Newsbank/Infoweb] The plant will initially have ten slicing cells allowing production of 150 million pounds per year and will eventually add ten more cells to double the plant's capacity.
At full capacity, the plant will employ more than 500 people.
[, cited at Newsbank/Infoweb] Similar to the Mount Pleasant plant, a Millard Refrigerated Services facility will be built adjacent to the Tremonton plant for warehouse storage of refrigerated and frozen products.
Initially, the company investigated sites for the new plant in
Utah
Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...
,
Nevada
Nevada ( ; ) is a state in the Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the 7th-most extensive, ...
, and
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
.
[, cited at Newsbank/Infoweb] It requested US$5.2 million in tax incentives from Utah to build in
Pleasant View, Utah
Pleasant View is a city on the northern edge of Weber County, Utah, United States. The population was 7,979 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Ogden– Clearfield, Utah Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is a suburban community of Ogden. ...
.
On April 26, 2006 Utah's Department of Community and Economic Development approved a US$2 million tax-rebate over 10 years.
[, cited at Newsbank/Infoweb] The incentives were conditioned on the new jobs paying a certain level above the county median wage, offering health insurance, and the company staying in Utah for 10 years.
Pleasant View offered another US$1.4-US$1.8 million in incentives.
However, construction in Pleasant View became impossible when it was discovered that much of the site consisted of wetland areas.
[, cited at Newsbank/Infoweb] After this development, the state held the incentive offer open provided that West Liberty Foods could find another suitable site that met Utah's requirements.
[, cited at Newsbank/Infoweb]
On July 29, 2006, the company announced that they would build the new plant in Tremonton, Utah.
The tax incentives will total an 80% property tax break, but Tremonton is projected to experience a US$508 thousand financial benefit over 12 years after the plant is completed.
Of the 500 jobs at the plant, 300 are expected to pay between US$21,500 and US$26,875.
The rest of the jobs will pay more with about 100 paying around US$37,000.
Bolingbrook, Illinois, plant
West Liberty Foods opened its plant in Bolingbrook, Illinois, plant in 2014. By 2016, the Bolingbrook facility achieved ISO certification, as well as landfill-free status.
Awards
West Liberty Foods has received a number of awards from various organizations.
* 2001 – Subway Supplier of the Year
* 2003 – Paul Hill honored by the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives
* 2005 – Economic Vision Award from
USDA
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is the federal executive department responsible for developing and executing federal laws related to farming, forestry, rural economic development, and food. It aims to meet the needs of com ...
Rural Development,
Best Business
Recycling
Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability to reacquire the p ...
Program award from Iowa Recycling Association,
Dedicated Services Award from Subway
* 2006 – Ed Garrett named "Executive of the Year" by The National Provisioner,
Mount Pleasant and Sigourney plants receive Safety Awards from Iowa-Illinois Safety Council, a chapter of the
National Safety Council
* 2007 – Quality Gold Standard Award from Subway
Hormel
Hormel Foods Corporation is an American food processing company founded in 1891 in Austin, Minnesota, by George A. Hormel as George A. Hormel & Company. The company originally focused on the packaging and selling of ham, sausage and other pork ...
Spirit of Excellence Award in 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002.
* 2008 – Subway Supply Chain Partner Award – Iowa-Illinois Safety Council Safety Award -Food Quality Award
*2021 - Top Green Providers by Food Logistics'
References
{{Good article
Agriculture companies of the United States
Manufacturing companies based in Iowa
Cooperatives in the United States
Brand name poultry meats
Food and drink companies established in 1996
Meat companies of the United States
Meat processing in the United States
1996 establishments in Iowa
Food and drink companies based in Iowa
Muscatine County, Iowa
Privately held companies based in Iowa
American companies established in 1996