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Chicken processing plant likely coming to Charles City with 254 jobs

Poultry plant at 901 North Main Street in Charles City, Iowa (cedarvalleyiowarealty.com)
Poultry plant at 901 North Main Street in Charles City, Iowa
(cedarvalleyiowarealty.com)

CHARLES CITY – A dormant poultry processing plant may be coming back to life in Charles City, after a Kansas company was awarded state incentives to expand to that community.

A proposed project from Simply Essentials, LLC, expands the business into high quality chicken production by purchasing and upgrading an existing facility in Charles City, located at 901 North Main Street.

This $29.9 million capital investment is expected to create 254 jobs, of which 34 are incented at a qualifying wage of $15.93 an hour. The Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) board awarded the company tax benefits worth about $2 million via the state’s High Quality Jobs (HQJ) program for this project.

According to Cedar Valley Realty, the vacant plant at 901 North Main Street is a “Turn-key Poultry Processing Facility with over 64,000 s.q. of Production, Cold Storage and Staging Space … Facility has been extensively updated and ready for immediate operation. Plant includes over 15,000 s.q. of cold storage including blast freezer capability. Facility also includes equipment for every phase of poultry processing from Kill to Cutting including ample capacity for waste water treatment. Facility needs very little to start production”.

One major obstacle, as reported by the Charles City Press, is the treatment of wastewater from the plant. According to the Press, the city’s wastewater treatment plant may not be able to handle the demands placed on it by the facility and the processing of 330,000 birds a week.  Expensive (and long-needed) modernization may be required to safely handle and treat the wastewater.  The plant hasn’t operated since 2011.

Simply Essentials, LLC, has been in business since 2013 with a primary focus on health and wellness foods. The company has contract cattle produced in Iowa and Minnesota with a proprietary feed formulation that enhances the Omega 3 attributes while lowering cholesterol.

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