County council members hope they are one step closer to enticing a turkey processing company to choose Knox County as its next location to open a plant.
Members heard details Tuesday during the council’s regular meeting on the proposal from Huntingburg-based Farbest Foods to build a facility to process turkey meat in the U.S. 41 Industrial Park.
Several Farbest officials, flanked by a cadre of members of the Knox County Development Corp., gave council members details about the proposal and answered questions.
Ted Seger, president of Farbest, gave a brief synopsis of the proposed plant, including how many jobs and how much capital investment it would supposedly bring.
Seger said that should the company officially decide to settle in the county, construction of a new facility would be a $70 million investment and, once operational, the new plant would provide about 160 jobs at first with an eventual expansion to 300. The jobs would provide an average wage of about $15 per hour, Seger said.
The operation, which would require keeping live turkeys at the plant for a period of time, would also require a feed mill, which Seger estimated would consume about 5 million bushels of corn a year to produce the feed needed for the turkey stock.
The construction of the feed mill would be a $20 million investment, Seger said.
Seger said Farbest officials have been in touch with several other counties, including some in Kentucky, about the plant.
He said the company would make a final decision by the end of the year, and likely in 10 days.
“Other communities have been very forthcoming as well and very competitive, both in the state of Indiana and the state of Kentucky as well,” Seger said.
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