Smithfield’s Tar Heel plant gets $100 million expansion

BLADEN COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — The Smithfield Foods processing plant in Tar Heel is getting a new distribution center and will expand its cold storage in a $100 million dollar expansion.

Smithfield Foods announced today the expansion would also create approximately 250 more jobs.

“This expansion reflects the promising new era we’re experiencing at Smithfield,” said Kenneth M. Sullivan, president and chief executive officer for Smithfield Foods. “It supports our continued growth and helps us better serve our customers by providing additional capacity and optimizing our distribution footprint.”

Smithfield will begin construction of the new distribution center this month. The new distribution center will be 500,000 square feet with 47,000 pallet positions.

The blast cell cold storage expansion, announced earlier this year, is underway and will increase the facility’s capacity by 140 million pounds. Both projects will be complete fall 2018.

Smithfield’s Tar Heel facility is the largest pork processing plant in the world. Currently, the facility employs nearly 5,000 people and processes more than 30,000 hogs each day.