The new owners of the former AgriProcessors in Postville received $600,000 in state assistance, plus tax credits, Thursday for a $15 million proposal to update and modernize the Kosher beef and poultry meatpacking plant.
Agri Star Meat & Poultry, owned by Canadian Hershey Friedman, says it will remodel the plant and introduce a new line of oven-baked beef and chicken, state documents show. The company plans to retain 168 jobs and create 140 jobs. Employees will earn at least $11.65 an hour, records show.
The Iowa Economic Development Board agreed to provide the company with $600,000 in loans and grants, plus an estimated $941,652 in tax credits, based on the company’s capital investment in the plant.
The board said incentives are contingent on Agri Star having an approved environmental plan in place and complying with federal immigration laws. In 2008, the plant was the subject of a federal raid that resulted in the arrest of hundreds of immigrant workers who were in the country illegally.
The company also received $145,000 in local tax abatements over five years and $50,000 in state job-training assistance.
(Source: Des Moines Register)
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I am an employee of the company Agri Star. I just wanted to say that the remodeling is under way but the complete transformation is a long ways away. Not only do they need to remodel the building but also management. I am sorry but when you have a manager and/or supervisor. That watch over their emploiees and machines. They should know at least a little about them. I am a machine operater. Neither my supervisor or manager can tell you how my machine works. But yet they try and tell me how to run it. Also i don’t have the correct equipment to put my machine together and to take it apart. With that being said, some night I am their on my own. Some nights I am the vary last person in my department that is in the plant. I am not a person of power but just a little pee on. So yeah they need to remodel everything!!