Claxton Poultry recently celebrated the opening of its new chicken deboning facility in Screven County, Georgia.
The 33,000-square-foot facility opened in June with 75 full-time employees. Since that time, the employment numbers there have grown to 187, reported WSAV.
The company’s plans to build the facility in the Screven County community of Sylvania were announced in September 2018. At the time, it was estimated that the plant would represent a $12 million investment.
“Our new facility will enable us to meet the growing needs of our current customers and allow for future expansion as customer needs dictate. We look forward to working with the county and the development authority on this project and to contributing to the local economy in Screven and surrounding counties,” Claxton Poultry President Mikell R. Fries said at the time.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and other dignitaries attended the ceremony on October 21. The visit to the Claxton Poultry facility was part of Kemp’s Georgia Made Tour.
“We had another great stop on the #GeorgiaMade Tour today. Excited to welcome Claxton Poultry to Sylvania and celebrate Georgia’s thriving poultry industry,” Kemp wrote on Twitter.
His tweet included pictures of him touring the plant and participating in the ribbon cutting ceremony.
Norman W. Fries, Sr. and Doris S. Fries founded the company in Savannah in 1949 with one employee and one truck. Today, Mrs. Fries as CEO and chairman oversees the company that has grown into a global food manufacturer that processes approximately 2.35 million birds per week with the assistance of its 1,800 employees, 250 contract grower families and a fleet of more than 140 vehicles, according to a press release.
According to WATT PoultryUSA’s 2019 Top Broiler Companies Survey, Claxton Poultry was ranked as the 18th largest broiler company in the United States at the end of 2018, having processed 9.04 million pounds of ready-to-cook chicken on a weekly basis.
