Proposed meat packing plant gets name, and a new partnership

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KEVN) - On May 27 it was announced that a $1.1 billion meat packing plant would be opening in Rapid City, and on June 6 Kingsbury and Associates, along with Sirius Realty announced the name of the proposed meat packing plant as well as their partnership with the Farmers Union Industries.

The name of the high-tech meat packing plant will be “Western Legacy Development Corporation”. The meat packing plant is expected to supply 2,500 jobs and if opened today starting pay would be $28 per hour. While many people are concerned with potential odors, CEO Megan Kingsbury said that the facility will be the first of its kind in North America to use the methane gas from the facility as energy for the plant, limiting the odor. The plant will be joined by another facility funded by the Farmers Union Industries.

“We’re excited to bring in our partner Farmers Union Industries where we are partnering together and they will be us on the bi-product facility side, this will flesh out our research and development phase over the next six months and we will break ground beginning of the year,” said Kingsbury, who is part of a five-generation South Dakota ranch. “With a three-year timeline to first-line opening.”

Farmers Union Industries expects to add 40-50 jobs that will specialize in the biproducts of the packing plant.

“We’ve been in business since 1929, so we are pretty familiar with the biproducts that will be prepared out of the facility. We are looking at a meat and bone meal that hopefully, we can utilize not only domestically, but foreign exporting. We are also looking at making tallow and yellow grease products that not can only go into the feed ingredient business, but also into the industrial and maybe the biodiesel industries,” said Dale Bednarek, CEO of Farmers Union Industries.

Both the Western Legacy Development Corporation and Farmers Union Industries plan for the Black Hills Industrial Center is in the research and development phase of development.