China meat and food processing company Zhongpin Inc. is expanding in northern China with a new pig meat production facility, according to the company.
The $49 million plant, which will be built in Tangshan city, Hebei province, will have an annual capacity of 60,000 metric tons of chilled pig meat, 20,000 metric tons of frozen pig meat and 22,000 metric tons of prepared pig meat products. It will also include cold storage and a cold chain logistics and distribution center. "The Tangshan facility, together with our modern and highly-standardized Tianjin facility, will constitute our new industrial cluster circle to further support the rapid growth of our company, the expansion of our cold-chain logistics network and the overall consolidation and modernization of the Chinese pork industry," said Xianfu Zhu, chairman and CEO of Zhongpin.
Construction of the facility is scheduled to start in the third quarter of 2011, with chilled and frozen pig meat production expected to begin in the third quarter of 2012 and prepared pig meat production in the second quarter of 2013.
