001266 Fire Damages Conagra Beef Plant in KansasDecember 30, 2000Chicago - A fire caused extensive damage at a ConAgra Foods Inc. beef processing plant in Garden City, Kan., leaving the plant shuttered for at least the rest of the week. There were no injuries, according to Bret Fox, a spokesman for the company's ConAgra Beef Co. unit. The blaze started about midnight and took about half the day to put out Tuesday, fire officials said. The fire was discovered in the plant's rendering area, according to Fox. The rendering area is where grease and tallow are made from parts of the animal. “There's been pretty extensive damage to the rendering area and the kill floor,” he said. ConAgra shares, which in the past year have ranged from $15-1/16 to $26- 3/16, were down 1/8 at $25-3/8 Tuesday. The plant, with capacity of about 4,400 head, had been shut down for the holiday weekend. It was scheduled to resume operations Tuesday, Fox said, but will now be closed for the rest of the week as management conducts a thorough damage assessment ConAgra, the second-largest U.S. food maker behind Philip Morris Cos. Inc.'s Kraft Foods, markets such brands as Butterball and Healthy Choice frozen dinners. Tom Tippens, livestock analyst at West Oak Commodities, Weatherford, Okla., said the fire will probably delay beef industry production for a short time, but extra capacity at other beef companies should make up for the lost production at Garden City. “Obviously,” he said, “when you take out kill capacity it would back up cattle a little bit.”
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