Operations at the new Lincoln Premium Poultry plant in Fremont, Nebraska, are set to begin on September 3, while a grand opening of the facility is set for October 19.
“We will start our first line that day and we’ll make sure all the equipment is operating in tandem with each other, all the machines have to talk to each other,” Jessica Kolterman, spokesperson for Lincoln Premium Poultry (LPP), told the Fremont Tribune. “We’ll work out that technology, and then by the end of the day, we should have products that will be ready for outbound to wherever it’s headed.”
LPP is partly owned by Costco Wholesale Corp. The plant will process chicken for Costco, and when it reaches full production, it is expected to provide about 40 percent of the company’s fresh chicken meat.
Kolterman estimated that the company will have about 500 employees when the plant begins production.
Operations will begin with a 45-week ramp-up period. The plant will begin with one line operating, and that line’s speed will gradually increase as “the kinks” are worked out, Kolterman explained. Once the first line is at full speed, the second and third lines will begin operations before moving onto the second shift.
When fully operational, the poultry plant in Fremont is expected to process 2 million chickens weekly. The average size of the birds to be processed will be 6 pounds, 4 ounces.
A hatchery and feed mill will support the new LPP plant. About 80 percent of the company’s processing equipment has been supplied by Marel Poultry.
Ground was broken on the plant in June 2017. At the time, it was hoped that the plant would begin operations in April 2019, however, it was reported that significant amounts of rainfall during September 2017 caused some delays in the construction process.
