Excel Plans Case-Ready Facility In Northeastern United States
For Immediate Release: April 18, 2001
Contact: Mark Klein, Cargill (952) 742-6211
Excel Corporation said today that construction has begun on a multi-species, multi-customer case-ready facility in Hazleton, Penn.
The plant is expected to be in operation in early 2002, and among the first customers will be Wal-Mart.
"Our key customers continue to show strong interest in case-ready programs as a solution to keeping their meat cases fully stocked at all times," said Leonal Kilgore, vice president of Excel's North American Case Ready business unit. "Case ready had been a slow evolution these last 10 years, but is now a trend that is in place and growing."
When completed, the 229,000-square-foot facility will employ approximately 700 people. Hazleton is in Eastern Pennsylvania, south of Wilkes-Barre and northwest of Allentown. The plant will be built in the Humboldt Industrial Park West.
The Hazleton facility will be Excel's first multi-species, multi-customer case-ready operation. Its plants in Toronto, Ont., and Newnan, Ga., are multi-species facilities dedicated to individual customers. Excel also has a customer-dedicated ground beef facility in Taunton, Mass.
"As we move forward, we will offer targeted customers case-ready programs from both dedicated and multi-customer plants, depending on their needs," Kilgore said. "We also will be offering single-species products from some of our primary processing plants." Excel's pork processing facility in Beardstown, Ill., began offering a line of case-ready pork to multiple customers last year.
Based in Wichita, Kan., Excel is a leader in providing innovative red meat solutions to customers and consumers.