Pure Prairie Poultry CEO gives plant update to development group

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Pure Prairie Poultry is making progress expanding into retail markets, including one grocery store in Charles City, the leader of the company told the members of the Charles City Area Development Corp. at that group’s meeting Wednesday morning.

“We are up to 300,000 birds per week, so that’s a full first shift,” said President and CEO Brian Roelofs, giving the group a company update.

Some of the previous owners of the plant, located off Charles City’s North Main Street, had frozen a lot of their product because they couldn’t get it sold, Roelofs said. But Pure Prairie Poultry is selling all its processed chicken fresh and “we continue to pick up costumers.”

“Our distribution center is up and running,” Roelofs said. “We have the racking in. So we’re using all of that. I said we would sell it fresh, so all of that product is going out fresh around the country to either food service distributors and industrial further processors and most importantly to retail stores.

“I’m happy to announce that last week we shipped our first product to Fareway stores,” he said. “They put our brand into an awful lot of the Fareway stores. The brand is available in Charles City.”

The plant has been developed as a retail tray pack plant with an emphasis on selling to the retail market, he said.

Asked if Pure Prairie Poultry was being sold in Hy-Vee, he said, “We continue to talk to them. We’re not in there yet.”

In addition to the distribution center addition that was first built on the plant, the office and break room complex is expected to be done in early June, Roelofs said.

“I think when you see it, you’ll appreciate what we’ve done. The break room facilities compared to what the team members had before, it’s going to be first class,” he said.

The company also continues to work on getting a second shift going.

“The timing of that depends on a few things – when we can get the eggs, the hatching space, the grower barns, the breeder barns and we are continuing to do business development work trying to line all of those things up,” Roelofs said.

“You really want to run a plant two shifts and leverage all of those fixed costs,” he said. “One shift can do well. It really takes a second shift to to accelerate the business.”

Roelofs also said staffing has been going pretty well, with good attendance and an ability to get the numbers needed. Workers are coming from as far away as Mason City and Waterloo.

He said the company has struggled a little finding staff such as maintenance, shipping and supervisors, but they are now fully staffed.

The Area Development Corp has been actively involved in pushing for increased housing options in the community, and Mayor Dean Andrews, co-chair of the CCADC’s Housing Task Force, asked if housing was a problem for Pure Prairie Poultry’s employees.

“I think it would be good to have people be able to live locally if they choose to,” Roelofs said. “I think it would help turnover, right? Obviously if somebody’s driving 40 miles and they find something closer to home, it’s easy to do that. So if they’re here, it probably has a little stickiness to it that would be better.”

Area Development Corp. CEO Tim Fox told Roelofs the company has come a long way.

“We make progress every day,” Roelofs said. “You’ve got to have that continuous improvement mindset and hopefully have a little bit of foresight and attack the things that are going to come up to bite you. We’ve got a good team of folks that are very seasoned leaders in the industry, and they seem to be able to anticipate those kind of things and make us better.”

Also at the CCADC meeting Wednesday, the board members heard an update from Andrews and City Administrator Steve Diers on the CCADC Housing Task Force and the city’s Thriving Communities housing projects status.

Andrews said one of the three developers who were interested in four potential development sites with state low income tax credits had submitted a project application, for the land near the Southwest Development Park that the CCADC is donating to the city. He said the city should hear this summer if the Iowa Finance Authority approves the multi-unit project.

As part of the meeting, the CCADC approved a warranty deed giving the property in the Southwest Development Park to the city for a potential housing project, and granted an easement through the development park to extend 13th Street and utilities to the property.

Diers said that in addition to the low income tax credit housing project, the city continues to work on market rate tax credit projects, possibly single family homes, that the city was made eligible for when it was designated a Thriving Community.

It is unlikely that a project can get going before the June deadline, so they are hoping they can get an extension since this is the first year of the program and “we’re all trying to figure this out at the same time,” Diers said.

Andrews also noted the NIACC Career Center is almost ready to open. Students from seven high schools including Charles City will take courses there in the morning, but they are working on setting up continuing education classes in building trades such as plumbing, welding and electrical for adults in the afternoons. Area contractors have been helping get the program set up.

Andrews also plugged the May 2 meeting for Charles City landlords to meet with city staff to develop ways for landlords and the city to better work together. The meeting will be at 5:30 p.m. in the Charles City Public Library Zastrow Room.

The CCADC board also agreed to spend up to $30,000 to recertify the Avenue of the Saints Development Park as a state-certified development park, updating the certification to the gold level if it can be done for that amount. State certification indicates to potential developers that a site is shovel-ready for a project.