Pilgrim's Pride to idle two chicken processing plants, cut 600 jobs

Pilgrim's Pride, a chicken company, has announced plans to idle a chicken processing plant in Clinton, Arkansas, and a further-processing facility in Bossier City, Louisiana. The idling of the two plants will eliminate a total of approximately 600 positions.

Both moves, which are expected to be completed within 60 days, are part of the company's ongoing efforts to operate more efficiently and return to profitability amid high feed costs and an oversupply of chicken on the market.

When completed, the idling of the Clinton processing plant will result in an approximate 1.25% incremental increase in the company's previously announced production cutback heading into the autumn. Meanwhile, value-added items currently produced in Bossier City will be shifted to other Pilgrim's Pride further-processing facilities.

The company plans to keep both plants idle until it believes that industry margins can be sustained at more normalized levels of profitability should these or other production cutbacks be reversed.

Clint Rivers, president and CEO of Pilgrim's Pride, said: "Over the past six months, Pilgrim's Pride has taken a number of proactive steps to strengthen our competitive position amid a very difficult operating environment. Those changes, when combined with today's announcement, will result in the elimination of nearly 2,300 positions."

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