Hog Farmers Were Counting on Trim Rite Deal
US - The deal to put a pork processing plant in Stephenson County is off. Not only is Trim Rite's announcement a let down in terms of job creation, it's also bad news for some of the areas farmers.One local hog farmer says he was counting on Trim Rite to help boost his bottom line.
Richard Beuth said:
"For the hog farmers, anytime you have another market, it's always good. Right now there's only a few markets in Illinois, so we would have had one more market, hopefully it would've raised our price."
Trim Rite spokesman James Jendruczek says there were more costs than benefits associated with the $17 million facility. The Trim Rite plant would have shared the Mill Race Crossing site with a proposed Blackhawk Biofuels Biodiesel facility, which Mayor George Gaulrapp says is still in the works. He's confident they'll fill the void left by Trim Rite.
"The pipeline has been filled with other leads. The foundation, along with the county and the city are continuing to go after those leads and make sure we have things in the future."