Hogs awaiting processing at the Triumph Foods plant in St. Joseph, Mo., the sister plant of the one to be constructed in East Moline.

During a visit to East Moline Tuesday, company officials said construction of the plant on Barstow Road will start next summer. It was originally set to begin last summer. It should be ready for operation in the summer of 2010.

“We’re doing as much construction at our St. Joe (St. Joseph, Missouri) plant as we can handle over the next 15 or 16 months and we have to stay focused there,” Patt Lilly, the company’s chief administrative officer, said of additions to that nearly two-year-old operation.

“We need to be able to provide focus once we start construction and, until we’re done there, we can’t provide focus here,” he said.

The St. Joseph plant, which opened in January 2006, has so far been a success, said Rick Hoffman, chief executive officer of Triumph. It is processing more hogs and employs more workers than initially anticipated. The East Moline facility, once completed, will be a near mirror image of that plant.

“With the exception of the colors and some internal things that we’ve learned since we built it, it will be identical to the St. Joe plant,” Hoffman said.