Every person and every business was presented challenges they had never faced before. Nonetheless, the turkey industry’s response to the challenges it has faced during the past several months has been remarkable.
Butterball’s calculated bet that bringing all its production in-house would spur growth and innovation in its product lines has paid off handsomely. Plant expansions and the acquisition of two large processing facilities will allow the processor to multiply its jackpot.
It has been a busy couple of years, but the gamble that Butterball LLC has taken to modify its operational approach appears to have paid off, spurred along by several headline-making acquisitions in recent years.
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).
According to the latest USDA forecast for turkey production, during the first six months of 2011, turkey meat production was 5.5 percent higher than the same period in 2010 (2.9 billion pounds).