By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — While rumors abound that Swift & Co. is eyeing Pekin, Ill., for a new pork processing plant that could employ up to 2,500 union workers, the Colorado-based business remained noncommittal about the issue as late as Friday.

After news of the possibility that Swift – a leading processor of beef, pork and lamb in domestic and foreign markets – would build a pork processing facility connecting to Pekin’s wastewater treatment plant reached central Illinois in October, Tazewell County Board Chair David Zimmerman told the Peoria Journal Star that details of the deal are “time sensitive” and there are “things in the works right now.”

Since then, however, information has essentially dried up regarding Swift’s reported intention to open the state’s third major pork processing plant in Pekin. (A call to Swift late last week was not returned by press time.) According to Tim Maiers, director of public relations for the Illinois Pork Producers Assoc. (IPPA), the organization has not been consulted regarding the construction of a Swift & Co. plant in Illinois.

“Quite honestly, we have not had any communication with Swift. They are not talking to anybody, so I don’t know what that means,” Maiers said.

“I don’t want to comment on anything, because I don’t know anything specific except for what I’ve read in the newspapers.
“I know in talking with the (Pekin) city council, I think (Swift) would want to talk with us at one point in the process. I don’t want to speak for them.”

If Swift were to locate a processing plant in central Illinois, the added packing capacity would be of benefit to not only Illinois pork producers, but also those from surrounding states comprising the Hog Belt, Maiers said.

“It’s a good sign that we’ve got an industry significant enough to look at an additional plant,” he said. “It would add additional infrastructure and another post-market for producers.”
Maiers expressed concern, however, whether the state’s other two pork processing plants, Cargill and Farmland, would be able to sustain their operations alongside further competition.
“If an additional (plant) should come, we want to make sure that it wouldn’t be a detriment to the other two we have in the state,” he said.

Locating the plant in central Illinois would mirror a recent trend of developing major hog processing plants close to ready sources of feedstuffs, Maiers added.

“Since the pork industry expanded in the early 1990s into Oklahoma and North Carolina and other places – which do not have the access to the corn and soybeans that we have here in the Midwest – they have faced increased fuel and feedstuffs costs,” said Maiers. “In raising pigs, feedstuffs is still the biggest expense producers have, so getting closer to the (source of) corn and soybeans in the Hog Belt is advantageous.”

Pekin Mayor Rusty Dunn said in late October that no final decisions on the plant would be forthcoming until after “full disclosure and proper and full pubic debate and input,” the Journal Star reported.
“To have a chance, or an opportunity, to bring business and commerce into this area, you can’t initially negotiate that in public. That’s never worked in the past, it wouldn’t work now and it won’t work that way in the future,” he said.

The rumored Swift plant would be located near Riverway Business Park, off Illinois Route 29. Communities in several states are said to be competing for the plant.