Work on the new $200 million integrated poultry operation of Peco Foods Inc. is changing the landscape in northeast Arkansas.
The nearly 200-acre poultry plant complex site near Pocahontas, assembled in three buys totaling almost $1.4 million in February 2014, is the centerpiece of construction activity.
But it’s merely the most visible, located near the northeast corner of U.S. 67 and Highway 90. The nearby hill country of the Ozarks to the north and west and Crowley’s Ridge farther to the east are hosting more than $200 million in additional development activity to support the plant.
“Now that the weather is starting to break, we’re starting to see some things of substance come out of the ground,” Mark Hickman, president and chief executive officer of Peco, based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, said back in mid-spring.
Construction of the 272,000-SF poultry processing plant and a dozen supporting structures has continued to pick up pace. During an Aug. 25 tour of the property, about 350 workers were on site installing equipment and building the facilities.
“We’ve lost 20-something work days because of bad weather,” said Steve Conley, Peco’s director of human resources. “The target date for this project was January 2016. Now, we’re looking to open by the end of February or first of March.”
The plant complex will ramp up to a payroll of more than 300. When fully staffed at about 1,000 and operating at capacity, the two-line plant is capable of processing 1.3 million chickens weekly.
“We’ve already started hiring some of the managers and training at other facilities,” said Alan Risley, Pocahontas plant manager. “That will continue for the next 18 months.”
C.R. Crawford Construction LLC of Fayetteville is overseeing construction of Peco’s hatchery, live operations office, protein recovery plant and trucking facility at the Pocahontas complex.
“It’s obvious that this isn’t their first rodeo, and we feel fortunate to be involved,” said Cody Crawford, president the general contractor.
“Several important decisions have been necessary to insure the schedule is maintained, most importantly preordering long-lead-time material items. They’ve stepped up to the plate and made those decisions every time.”
Precast concrete panels used to clad the processing plant and other buildings required ordering six months in advance before fitting into the development timetable.
“There’s all kind of issues when you do what we’re doing,” Conley said. “It’s mind-boggling. Hiring the people to work at the plant is the least of our worries. Trying to find a place for the chickens to live is another matter.”
Kevin Bell looked into becoming a poultry grower for Peco after the company announced an expansion of its Batesville processing facility in October 2012. His built-from-scratch operation nearing completion will now support the company’s Pocahontas plant.
“I started construction in August 2014, doing the ground work for the broiler houses,” Bell said. “I really wanted to do four, but I had to do six to make the numbers work out better.”
Each of the houses represents a $310,000 development that will shelter up to 25,700 birds during a 63-day growing cycle.
Bell’s $2 million poultry farm in southwest Randolph County is part of a massive house-building program to support the new Pocahontas plant.
“Construction and site work costs total about $206 million, and that’s just the growers,” said Duane Weems, live operations manager for Peco.
The company’s contracts with growers for the new plant represent an an-nual payout of about $48 million. A network of 588 grower houses, mostly devoted to raising broilers, is about 80 percent complete on paper.
Peco will be completing letters of intent for the remainder by year’s end to set the final build-out in motion. The company had no trouble attracting interest from potential growers.
“We did some advertising very early on,” Weems said. “But when we made our public announcement [in March 2014], they came calling on us.”
Peco had to adjust its scheduling because of a backlog of work for contractors specializing in grower houses.
“It’s mostly been the construction side of it,” Hickman said. “The lack of builders to move fast enough on construction has been a stumbling block for us.”
The Pocahontas hatchery still under construction is expected to deliver its first crop of chicks to growers by Feb. 1.
Peco Grower Houses Supporting the Pocahontas Processing Plant
Broiler* | Pullet | Breeder | |
Needed | 528 | 20 | 40 |
Committed | 414 | 20 | 38 |
Under construction | 122 | 8 | 20 |
Completed | 22 | 10 | 2 |
* Sixty-six houses originally supporting Peco’s Batesville processing plant will be switched to supplying the Pocahontas facility. That will bring the total number of broiler houses growing chickens for the new plant to 594. Pullet houses produce young hens for the breeder houses, which produce eggs for the hatchery that produces chicks for the broiler houses.
In Neighboring Clay County
Finishing work continues on the three towering silos and supporting facilities at Peco’s Corning feed mill, about a 33-mile drive from the Pocahontas plant.
Each of the 145-foot tall granaries has a 600,000-bushel capacity. Meeting the annual demand for feed by the new grower network will require the harvest from 100,000 acres.
Corn, milo and wheat will come from area farms within a 50-mile radius. A recent test run of 1,000 bushels of corn was trucked in from Greene County.
Soybean meal, a major component of the Peco feed recipe, will be delivered by rail from the Archer Daniels Midland processing plant in southwest Missouri near Deerfield.
Work on the spur line to connect the feed mill with the nearby Union Pacific rail and accommodate hopper cars from ADM is still in progress at the feed mill.
So is construction to upgrade County Road 142 to handle heavy truck traffic. The soon-to-be-paved gravel road links the feed mill with U.S. 67, about 2 miles to the west.
The Corning facility is expected to generate 100 trucks daily hauling feed or grain. The daily truck count is expected to grow to 350 during harvest season when stores of grain are collected.
The mill should begin producing feed before Thanksgiving. Hiring has started, and employment is expected to climb to 55 when the processing operations are in full swing.