Farmland Takes Over Pork Processing Plant

Farmland Foods Inc. has assumed control of a Wichita, Kan., pork processing plant that was previously owned by Safeway Stores Inc.

Farmland Foods purchased the plant as part of a continuing effort to concentrate its activities in “more value-added products than in production of raw pork,” said Gary Evans, president of the Kansas City-based Farmland Foods. In 1987, Farmland Foods closed a pork processing plant in Iowa Falls, Iowa, to focus more on the retail and food service sides of its business.

Safeway, based in Oakland, built the Wichita plant in 1975. The plant, which has 200,000 square feet of space, can produce a million pounds of hot dogs and luncheon meats a week.

Farmland officials expect the plant to employ about 100 people for the first six months of operation. As production levels increase to capacity, the work force should reach 300 by the end of the first year of operations, Evans said.

Farmland Foods is a subsidiary of Farmland Industries, a regional farm supply and marketing cooperative based in Kansas City.