By BILL MARDIS, Editor Emeritus
Somerset — The flow of news about a proposed $110 million beef processing plant in South Central Kentucky that would employ 750 workers has dried up like a strip of beef jerky. Everybody, particularly the media, wants to know where the plant will be located and how far away is the finished business plan. Lips are sealed at the state level; nobody is talking.
Rick Stephens, chair of McCreary County Industrial Development Authority, is an exception. He says folks are trying to get the cart before the horse.
“Everybody wants a conclusion before the cake is baked,” laughed Stephens, member of a committee formulating a Kentucky Beef Processing Business Plan.
“The plan is not about a location,” Stephens said, “... but will it (beef processing plant) work if given a proper location.” He said investors will determine the location for the plant.
Asked if the committee is evaluating three sites for the plant, Stephens responded: “That may be it.” He said a report by the committee to the Governor’s Office of Agricultural Policy will be made in about 90 days. “We’re heading down that road,” he added.
Asked about reports that a committee member walked out of a planning session in Somerset some two or three weeks ago, Stephens said it was he who left the meeting.
“I wasn’t angry ... I wasn’t upset. I just had to go,” Stephens said. “Everything is going as well as could be expected and there is no dissension on the panel that I know of ... and I would know it.”
Preparation of the business plan is being paid for with a $130,000 grant from the Governor’s Office of Agricultural Policy with matching $65,000 contributions from both South Kentucky RECC and the McCreary County Industrial Development Authority.
The application for planning funds said the plant would be designed to utilize cull-cow processing of up to 1,000 head a day, three days a week, and 1,000 head of hogs a day, two days a week. It would produce beef jerky, beef snack foods and pork rinds. The facility would be the first of its kind to kill the animal and produce the final product in the same plant.
Tim Hughes, senior policy analyst for the Governor’s Office for Agriculture Policy, said this week that “ ... given the timeline, the committee should make a report about June. Otherwise, Hughes said he doesn’t think “ ... anything at this point is ready to discuss publicly.”
The only firm statement about the plant’s location is in an application for planning funds. It says the processing facility will be located within the Lake Cumberland Area Development District. The district includes Adair, Casey, Clinton, Cumberland, Green, McCreary, Pulaski, Russell, Taylor and Wayne counties.
Somerset, one of the more affluent third-class cities in Kentucky, may be the only governmental unit in the Lake Cumberland Area Development District with ability to supply needed infrastructure for a beef processing plant. A person familiar with this type of facility said processing of beef and pork into jerky and rinds requires large ovens fired with natural gas, a source of energy in plentiful supply from Somerset Gas Service. Also, a beef processing plant would use large quantities of water and would need wastewater disposal facilities. McCreary County reportedly has a plentiful supply of natural gas.
The project is a direct result of a feasibility study earlier in 2008 that determined a beef processing facility is feasible, according to Rodney Dick, a longtime employee of the Pulaski County Road Department and one of 13 members of the state agricultural development board. Dick said the processing facility would have a tremendously positive impact on the agricultural economy in the surrounding area and across the state.
