Representatives for Koch Foods joined Governor Kay Ivey and local leaders in Etowah County on Tuesday to announce that the company plans to invest more than $50 million to establish a grain storage and distribution facility in Attalla.
In a press release, Koch Foods, which employs 3,000 people in Alabama, stated the “new poultry feed-mill will create 28 new jobs with an annual payroll of $1 million” and “support the company’s recently expanded processing plant in nearby Gadsden.”
“Koch Foods already has significant operations in Alabama, and this new investment will magnify the company’s economic impact on the state,” Ivey said. “This project adds a robust new dimension to the industrial sector in the state and permits us to strengthen our longstanding relationship with a major employer.”
The press release also said the 130-acre facility in Attalla will have the ability to hold more than 1 billion bushels of corn, served directly by rail.
“We are very excited about building one of the most technologically innovative grain storage facilities in the world,” said Matthew Herman, Koch senior vice president of Fresh Operations. “We continue to expand our business in Alabama and are thankful for the cooperative environment between business and government in the state to get things accomplished.”
In 2018, Koch announced an $80 million expansion of its Gadsden plant as part of a growth project, which involved 200 new jobs. That project set into motion a fourth processing line to the facility, boosting production capacity and making the Etowah County operation one of the largest poultry-processing plants in the country.
“We’re excited that Koch Foods has chosen Attalla for this large, high-tech facility,” Attalla Mayor Larry Means said. “We are thankful to have 28 new, high-paying jobs in our community, and this facility will build on the strong focus on industry and innovation that are woven into the history of Attalla.”
“In addition to the long-term operational jobs, there will be over 200 people working to build the facility here in Attalla over the next 18 months,” he added. “The economic impact of construction alone will be huge for the City of Attalla and all of Etowah County.”
Construction on the new facility, which is already underway, is set to conclude in 2021 with the facility becoming fully operational shortly after. A press release for the project stated the “company will start assembling a management team in the first quarter of 2020 and will begin interviewing prospective production workers in early 2021.”
“This project qualifies for two of the industrial sectors the Gadsden-Etowah Industrial Development Authority has targeted — Logistics and Food & Farming,” said David Hooks, executive director of the Gadsden-Etowah Industrial Development Authority. “Locating this state-of-the-art facility will go a long way in solidifying Etowah County’s position as a national leader in both sectors.”
Kyle Morris also contributes daily to Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @RealKyleMorris.
