Voters for The National Provisioner’s Plant of the Year award this year faced a serious challenge, as each of the nominees — all processing facilities visited for cover stories from June 2015 through May 2016 — made a very strong case for winning the annual award.
Butterball has made sizeable investments into the Raeford plant beyond the initial purchase, feeding into its goal to become more focused on adding value to its commodity product lines.
In mid-November, Andy Hanacek, editor-in-chief, visited Raeford, N.C., in order to attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony and get an exclusive tour of the new Butterball further-processing plant there (which was also still under construction at presstime).
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected House of Raeford’s appeal against criminal charges that the company willfully released turkey remains into waterways, in violation of federal clean water law.