'From birth to bacon'

Premium Minnesota Pork is planning to build a $70 million processing facility and add nearly 100 more jobs in Luverne’s industrial park near its current hog harvest business along County Road 4 west of town.
The expansion would mark a significant investment for the company that already spent $30 million in 2019 to expand the 78,000-square-foot building to 145,000 square feet, counting an enclosed mono slope barn.
Following a 10,000-square-foot, $7 million cooler addition, the once shuttered IBP property is now an 4,000-hog-per-day operation that employs more than 450 workers.
 
Supporting businesses
In its current facility PMP processes pork into primal meat cuts, such as butts, loins and hams.
The new facility next will further process these cuts into case-ready products such as chops, ribs, ground pork and bacon under the Vande Rose Farms label.
PMP contracts with area farmers to raise its signature antibiotic-free pigs, so this final processing step takes the company’s pork “from birth to bacon,” according to president Dan Paquin.
“This completes our vertical integration,” he said Monday. “We’ve been working on this for a few years."
As part of the agreement on its original 17.5 acres in 2019, PIP acquired an option to buy an additional 28.75 acres (at $5,000 per acre) from the Luverne Economic Development Authority.
The new PMP facility will be built on 16 acres, and 13 acres were sold last year to Lineage Logistics for a 235,000-square-foot cold storage warehouse, currently under construction.
Lineage will be a public warehouse, but Paquin said he’s been partnering with the cold storage company which will have space dedicated to PMP products to be shipped.
The $50 million warehouse, to be completed next summer, will offer storage temperatures ranging from -20 to 45 degrees and its operation will require up to 75 employees.
 
Timeline and funding
Paquin said he had hoped to start construction on the new building this spring, but plans are now on hold for possible grant funding.
The USDA earlier this year made offered $25 million grants to qualifying companies “encourage competition and sustainable growth in the U.S. meat processing sector, and to help improve supply chain resiliency.”
Paquin said PMP’s shovel-ready project fits the grant qualifications; however, funds won’t be awarded until September, meaning construction will wait until fall.
“We would have liked to have started this spring, but that amount of money is too much to ignore,” Paquin said.
Meanwhile, PMP is seeking support from local government leaders in the grant application.
At their Tuesday morning meeting, Rock County commissioners approved a letter of support for PMP to pursue the grant.
Paquin said he’ll also approach Luverne City Council members for a similar letter of support for the grant at their next meeting May 10.
 
PMP’s expanding
economic impact
Rock County officials recently partnered with University of Minnesota Extension for an economic analysis to measure the PMP’s impact on the community as it grows.
According to the report, the facility’s construction will generate $91 million of economic activity in Rock County, accounting for $40.8 million in labor income for an estimated 200 construction workers, plus 140 workers off site at supporting businesses.
These impacts will dissipate when the project is finished, the report states.
The project will generate an estimated $6.7 million in federal taxes, $2.3 million in state taxes, and $0.8 million in local (including cities, counties, and school districts) for a total of $9.8 million in taxes.
Once new construction is complete, PMP’s additional 80 to 100 workers will generate more than $40 million in output for the facility, earning more than $6 million in labor income.
In total, the annual operations of the meat processing facility will generate roughly $55.6 million in economic activity for Rock County.