001271 Fire-Damaged Conagra Beef Plant to Remain Closed

Chicago - The ConAgra Foods Inc beef processing plant at Garden City, Kan., will remain closed next week and for an indeterminate time after a fire caused extensive damage to the facility, said Karen Savinski.

Cattle slaughter and beef processing operations have been increased at the company's three other beef plants to compensate for the loss of production at Garden City.

“We are meeting customers needs by increasing operations at our other ConAgra Beef Co. facilities,” said Savinski.

ConAgra Beef Co is a unit of ConAgra Foods.

The Garden City plant employs 2,300 people and had a daily cattle slaughter capacity of 4,400 head. The company has been offering employees relocation packages to work at other ConAgra beef plants.

All of the Garden City plant's boxed beef inventory was expected to be shipped out by the end of the day on Friday.

There were no injuries in the fire, which started during the night and took about half the day to put out on Tuesday, company and fire officials said.

The fire caused extensive damage to the rendering area and to the kill floor, the company said.

RETURN TO HOME PAGE

E-mail: sflanagan@sprintmail.com