Koch Foods intends to expand its poultry processing facility in Gainesville, Georgia.
The proposed facility will be between 170,000 and 183,000 square feet and is planned for the existing site and the neighboring property, which is now the Good News at Noon homeless shelter. The Good News at Noon shelter is moving to a larger facility.
The plans, if realized, would more than double Koch Foods’ capacity in Gainesville. Its present facility measures 74,000 square feet. That plant was built in the 1960s and purchased by Koch Foods in 2002.
City documents reveal that the company is requesting the land be zoned heavy commercial, and that Mitchell Street be closed. Plans provided to the city call for the proposed facility to include 90,000 square feet for poultry processing and deboning operations, 24,000 square feet of office space, 62,826 square feet of freezer space, 234 employee and visitor parking spaces, 50 trailer parking spaces and 16 truck bays/docking stations.
The Gainesville Planning and Appeals Board held a hearing concerning the proposed plans on November 9. Gwen Fleming, recording secretary for the board, told WATT Global Media that the board recommended those plans to the Gainesville City Council, which will hold a hearing and consider those plans during a December 7 meeting. Nobody spoke out in opposition to Koch Foods’ proposal at the planning board’s meeting, Fleming said.
The news of Koch Foods’ planned expansion in Gainesville comes just two months after it was revealed that the company intends to expand its facility in Fairfield, Ohio. With that project, Koch Foods plans to expand the existing Fairfield operations by 402,140 square feet.
According to the WATTPoultry.com Top Companies Database, Koch Foods processed 60.74 million pounds of ready-to-cook chicken on a weekly basis during the past year. The company has eight slaughter plants, four further processing plants, seven hatcheries and five feed mills. In addition to having operations in Ohio and its home state of Illinois, Koch Foods operates in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee.
