By Donnelle Eller, Des Moines Register
Meatpacking giant JBS USA plans to build a $135 million sausage processing plant that will eventually employ 500 people in Perry, the central Iowa town that lost nearly 1,300 jobs when competitor Tyson Foods closed its pork plant last year.
JBS said Thursday, May 29, that the Brazilian company wants to build a 150,000–square-foot plant on about 90 acres next to Perry’s industrial park on its southeast side.
The sausage plant would be the company’s first in the United States, its largest globally and likely one of the biggest in the nation, Wesley Batista Filho, JBS USA’s CEO, told the Register on Wednesday before the announcement became public.
The project could be a “game changer” for the town of about 7,985 people, said Mayor Dirk Cavanaugh. The community faced tremendous adversity last year. In addition to losing Tyson, its largest employer, Perry also suffered a school shooting last year that left three people dead and six others wounded.
“We’re really excited about this opportunity because we think it fills a big need and gets people back to work,” Cavanaugh said on Wednesday.
JBS proposes to build a plant — instead of using the shuttered Tyson plant — so it can incorporate the latest technology for food and employee safety, enabling it to operate for decades, said Batista Filho, who met with city officials, Iowa pork producers and others in Perry on Wednesday. “We want the plant to be here 100 years from now,” he said.
JBS says the new plant is expected to process 500,000 sows each year, largely drawing animals from Iowa and its own operations in northern Missouri. It would produce about 130 million pounds of sausage annually — enough to feed more than 4 million people each year, the company said.
The plant would employ 250 people with its first shift, with starting wages averaging around $22 an hour, JBS said. Batista Filho said employment would grow to 500 people when a second shift is added, although the timing would depend on customer demand.
Batista Filho said JBS has been able to hire some former Tyson workers at its pork processing plants in Marshalltown and Ottumwa. And the company would like to hire more at its new Perry plant.
Sven Peterson, Perry’s city administrator, said Wednesday it’s unclear how many former Tyson workers remain in the area. The school system lost about 110 students this year, he said, indicating their parents have left the region to find work.
Cavanaugh said he’s heard from residents working in the Des Moines metro area who would like to work closer to home. He said his only complaint is that it will take roughly a year for new jobs to come online. “They’re going to be good jobs, and we feel that JBS is a good fit for our community,” Cavanaugh said.
Plant construction is expected to begin late this year and employ about 250 people. The plant could open as early as the second quarter of 2026, Batista Filho said.
JBS is building the plant because of consumer demand for sausage, he said. Earlier this month, parent company JBS S.A. reported U.S. pork sales climbed 5% to $2 billion in the first quarter compared to a year earlier. Overall, the company’s first quarter sales climbed to $19.5 billion, an 8.5% increase over a year earlier.
JBS’s first-quarter profits were $500 million, 50% greater than the same quarter a year earlier, the company said.
In recent years, however, the pork industry has struggled. Tyson Foods, for example, closed the Perry plant in June last year after reporting it lost $128 million on its pork operations in 2023.
“We’ve gone through 48 months of some of the worst times we’ve seen,” Pat McGonegle, Iowa Pork Producers Association CEO, said on Wednesday. “But it’s gotten significantly better for the producers. And I think it’s gotten better for the processors, too.”
McGonegle said Iowa has 800,000 to 900,000 sows at any one time, and the new plant will add capacity to Smithfield Foods’ sow processing plant in Des Moines. When the Des Moines plant is full, “our sows have to be transported outside the state,” he said, adding costs for farmers in Iowa, the nation’s largest pork producer.
With the Tyson Foods plant in Perry closed, farmers were asked to take their animals to other facilities. McGonegle said Tyson has done a good job of working producers into its pork plants in Waterloo, Storm Lake and Columbus Junction.
Overall, Arkansas-based Tyson employs 9,000 people in Iowa, even after the Perry plant closed.
JBS is expected to ask for state and local incentives for the project, but the company and Perry officials said it was too early to say how much the company would seek.
In addition to incentives, the Perry City Council also will be asked to consider zoning changes and to extend the industrial park’s infrastructure for the project.
Tyson continues efforts to sell the plant, Peterson said, adding that the city has seen nibbles that so far haven’t resulted in landing a new company at the site.
Perry has seen new business development: ADR Axles USA, the maker of axles, braking systems and suspensions for agricultural and industrial equipment, said it will invest $14.6 million to build a 54,000-square-foot plant in the industrial park that will create 35 jobs.
Batista Filho said in a statement that JBS is building in Perry because it “represents everything we value in a community: hard work, strong producer roots, and people who understand the importance of feeding America.”
Batista Filho said executives visited other towns that were contenders for the project, but Perry won the company over. “When you shake people’s hands and talk to them, you know how the community works,” he said. “We could see ourselves as being part of it for decades to come.”
JBS said Perry will benefit from its “Hometown Strong” program, which is investing $100 million in rural communities across the U.S. and Canada, supporting projects like new community centers, affordable housing, school improvements, athletic facilities, childcare and parks.
And JBS’s “Better Futures” program provides free community college tuition for team members and their children, helping families develop personally and professionally. “Our investments in Perry will go beyond dollars — they will help build careers, strengthen families, and ensure a thriving community for generations to come,” Batista Filho said in a statement.
JBS ratified a union contract this month that gives 26,000 U.S. workers, including those in Marshalltown and Ottumwa pork plants, retirement benefits for the first time in 40 years as well as paid sick leave and improved hourly wages.
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