SILER CITY — The new Mountaire chicken processing plant is up and running, processing approximately 80,000 chickens a day.
Mountaire, a Delaware based poultry processing company, constructed the $170 million, 255,000-square-foot facility in downtown Siler City.
“We are still making progress,” Mountaire Community Relations Manager Mark Reif said. “We are still at the soft start mode.”
Reif said that when the plant first opened in January, it was processing 40,000 chickens a day. The company has continued to “tweak certain things that need tweaking” during this soft start period, he said.
The company’s pre-treatment facility, which treats wastewater from the poultry process, is also up and running, utilizing approximately one-fourth of its allowed allocation, according to Reif.
The Mountaire plant is currently employing bewteen 500 to 600 full-time employees but is continuing to hire, expecting to add a few hundred more employees.
The plant is only hiring for first shift at this time with the goal of hiring a total of 1,100 employees for that shift. Reif notes that the company is looking to add a second shift at some point but does not have a expected date for that expansion.
“We’ll make that decision when it feels right,” Reif said.
Once the second shift is added, the company expects to employ a total 1,700 people.
The company’s health and wellness center is also up and running. The center is available to treat any employee or family member that is a member of the Mountaire health plan.
Reif anticipates the plant will be in full production with its first shift in June.