Cargill has inaugurated a processing plant in Nicaragua that will have the capacity to sacrifice up to 14,000 birds per hour, and it required a $45 million investment.
The new plant, where cuts of whole chicken will be automated, will provide greater capacity for freezing and in line packaging.
Cargill is preparing to start-up in April this year a new chicken meat processing plant, located on the road to Masaya.
Although the plant will not operate at full capacity initially, it will have a total capacity to slaughter 13,500 birds per hour for two eight-hour shifts each day, six days per week.
Xavier Vargas Montealegre, director of Cargill Nicaragua, told Laprensa.com.ni that "... The plant will employ 975 people and will have two processes: in the primary one the birds will be slaughtered and in the secondary one it will cool, split and pack the chicken and then move it to the storage and distribution center."
With a $5 million investment a farm to fatten up chickens was inaugurated in León, and it is expected to produce about 3 million chickens a year.
The mixed capital poultry company (Nicaraguan and American) is called Castillo Poultry LLC and is located in the municipality of La Paz Centro, in León.
ProNicaragua reports that the company signed a production contract with Cargill from Nicaragua.
By the end of the year the chicken meat processing plant that Cargill is building on the road to Masaya will be ready to start operating.
Representatives from the food processing company explained that the new plant, which is added to the current two with modern infrastructure and equipment, required an investment of $40 million.
The poultry industry in Nicaragua plans to initiate efforts to obtain certification so that its plants can start exporting chicken meat to the United States.
Since the certification process can take up to three years, the aim of the poultry industry is to start early in order to be ready to start exporting to the US market before the end of the period of tariff reduction set by the DR-CAFTA.
Cargill has inaugurated a new cold storage and distribution plant southeast of Managua, with capacity to store up to 8 million pounds of chicken meat.
In addition to the new plant, in which $50 million were kkinvested, Cargill announced plans to invest $100 million over the next three years in three new projects, including a plant for shrimp food, in which it plans to invest $12 million.
Cargill has started construction of a processing plant and refrigerated warehouses which in ten years could be producing 400,000 birds per day.
From a statement issued by Cargill Meats Central America:
Cargill de Nicaragua SA today announced a major new investment in Nicaragua to continue contributing to the development of this country and has as its aim to continue guaranteeing the supply of chicken, using international standards and standards of quality and safety, for all Nicaraguans.