Pilgrim’s Pride announces $190M in planned capital expenditures

GREELEY —  Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. on Tuesday said it plans to spend $190 million to improve efficiencies at its chicken-processing plants throughout the country.

Greeley-based Pilgrim’s Pride (Nasdaq:  PPC), which is majority-owned by Brazilian food giant JBS, expects the capital investment to enhance growth with key customers and expand production of its Pierce Chicken brand.

The cash flow reinvestment plan is tailored to meet customer needs through targeted capital spending in feed production, fresh chicken, and prepared foods including case-ready operations — meat packaging that is ready for display cases in supermarkets.

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Planned investments include:

• $18 million investment at a Pilgrim’s case-ready facility to streamline deboning and packaging processes. Pilgrim’s did not specify which facility, but it has case-ready operations in Florida, Arkansas, Texas, Georgia and Alabama.

• $25 million investment at Pilgrim’s prepared-foods facility in Moorefield, W.V., to enhance existing fully cooked chicken lines and add an additional line to meet growth demands for the Pierce Chicken brand.

• $35 million investment to acquire property and construct a new feed mill in Nashville, Ark., to lower feed costs, enhance feed conversion and improve live poultry performance.

• $20 million investment at Pilgrim’s poultry complex in Mayfield, Ky., to re-engineer the facility to improve its value-added product mix in alignment with the needs of a key customer. The project will result in the addition of approximately 150 new jobs in 2016.

Pilgrim’s Pride posted net income of $645.9 million, or $2.50 per share for 2015, down from $711.6 million, or $2.74 per share in 2014. Revenue for the year was $8.2 billion, down from $8.6 billion.

“We are excited to have the opportunity to leverage our strong balance sheet to reinvest into our Company,” Fabio Sandri, Pilgrim’s chief financial officer, said in a prepared statement. “Our strategy remains to explore every opportunity at our disposal to grow our business and create shareholder value.”

Pilgrim’s employs approximately 39,000 people and operates chicken-processing plants and prepared-foods facilities in 12 states, Puerto Rico and Mexico. The company’s primary distribution is through retailers and food-service distributors.