In an Indiana region rich in hog production, a major pork production plant continues investing in expansion. This week Indiana Packers Corporation in Carroll County, announced plans for a $23 million 99,000 square foot cold storage distribution center adjacent to its Delphi plant. The company’s VP of Corporate Planning, Jeff Feirick said the project, to be completed in August 2017, will help with speed and logistics.
“We’ll improve our inventory logistics through this expansion,” he said. “It will allow us to increase our sales orders and speed up our delivery capabilities, thus making us more efficient. A year ago we had our bacon expansion, and that was a $40 million expansion. Now this just makes sense to provide cold storage capabilities to our company.”
Raising hogs in Carroll and surrounding counties is a robust business. Carroll ranks 2nd in the state and adjacent White County is 1st according the last ag census report. The nearby supply is key to Indiana Packer’s growth.
“We are looking to grow the Indiana Kitchen brand and it is important to have the hog supply. We believe we’ll have the hog supply that we’ll need,” Feirick told HAT.
The Carroll County Economic Development Corporation along with the Carroll County Redevelopment Commission have worked closely with Indiana Packers, an important contributor to the local economy.
“This is just another one of our long-term commitments to staying and investing in Carroll County. This expansion is a positive thing for us and for the local Carroll County economy. We appreciate the work of executive director Laura Walls from the CCEDC. She worked with us to help us keep this project rolling on, and you know this is a neat thing.”
Walls said, “Getting this done was very important to us for many reasons. The Indiana Packers Corporation impact on the local economy stretches far beyond the 2,100 employees to the more than 100 agribusinesses all across Carroll County. Not to mention, they are a great corporate citizen producing a truly superior product.”
Key to the project are several infrastructure improvements, including a traffic study and roadway reconstruction, enabling Indiana Packers Corporation to optimize its existing property.