Officials with JBS USA Inc. have their eyes focused on November 2026: That’s when the company’s new state-of-the-art sausage processing facility in Perry is expected to become operational, creating about 250 new jobs in the Dallas County community.

When the project was initially announced in June, officials said a second shift of workers would likely be added in several years.

But on Tuesday, during a groundbreaking ceremony for the $135 million project, Wesley Batista Filho, JBS USA’s CEO, said interest from customers in the fresh sausage product indicates that the second shift will “happen sooner rather than later.”

The added shift would boost employment at the facility to 500 workers.

“This facility is going to bring good jobs back to Perry so our residents don’t have to commute to work,” Dirk Cavanaugh, Perry’s mayor, said during the ceremony. “It will also attract new businesses and residents to Perry.”

The facility is expected to produce 130 million pounds of sausage annually, enough to feed 4 million Americans, Filho said. “That is going to be a large amount of product that is coming out of a plant that’s going to be located” in Perry.

The accelerated timeline for expanding the number of shifts at the new Perry plant is welcome news to state and local officials. In June 2024, Tyson Foods Inc. shuttered its long-time plant in Perry, laying off over 1,200 workers.

In the past 19 months, nearly 7,000 workers in the manufacturing sector have lost their jobs either through plant closures or layoffs, a recent Business Record review found.

Iowa’s pork farmers have struggled in recent years, Debi Durham, director of the Iowa Finance and Iowa Economic Development authorities, said during the groundbreaking ceremony. Lower prices for hogs and high feed costs contributed to pork farmers losing an average of $32 a head in 2023, the worst financial year in the industry’s history.

“Some longtime producers were forced out of business,” Durham said. “The manufacturing sector, Iowa’s largest, has struggled with the impact of tariffs, weak commodity prices and inflation. Yet, despite all of these headwinds, here we are [in Perry] celebrating several remarkable turnarounds.”

The plant will provide a new outlet for pork farmers to sell their product and will provide new jobs for Perry residents and those in surrounding communities, Durham said.

JBS USA officials estimate 500,000 sows will be processed annually at the Perry facility.
A new JBS production facility in Ankeny will use a large portion of the sausage produced at the Perry plant, Filho said. In August, JBS USA bought a facility previously owned and used by Hy-Vee Inc. to produce grab-and-go items for its convenience and grocery stores. Hy-Vee idled the production facility in June.

The Ankeny facility “is going to help [the Perry] plant with demand,” Filho said. “We’re going to send sausage from [Perry] to cook in Ankeny. It’s going to make the ramp-up of the [Perry] facility actually faster. … We’re excited about that.”

JBS USA’s plant in Perry will have a variety of jobs including assembly work of processing, grinding and packaging products, Rick Foster, president of JBS USA Prepared Foods, said.

About 10% of the jobs will involve operating machinery and integrating the machines with technology.

The 150,000-square-foot facility will be located in the Perry Industrial Park in the southeast section of the community. Construction is expected to last a year, with the plant becoming fully functional by late 2026.

JBS USA, headquartered in Greeley, Colo., produces meat and poultry products for many brands including Just Bare, Swift, Pilgrim’s and Gold’n Plump. The company is a subsidiary of Brazil-based JBS S.A.

JBS USA has two facilities in Council Bluffs and one each in Marshalltown and Ottumwa.

“Iowa is a state that we have operated in for a long time now,” Filho said. “It was kind of a no-brainer for us to choose which state to continue to invest in. … We expect this facility in Perry to be here 100 years from now.”