New Clemens Pork Processing Plant Opens

Sep 06, 2017

Farms.com Editorial Team

The new Clemens Food Group pork processing plant began operations this week. The new 550,000 square-foot fresh pork processing facility is located at Jonesville Road and Newton Road in Coldwater, Michigan. It is expected to cost more than $255.7 million in private investment and create over 800 jobs.

There has not been a Michigan based pork processing plant of any size since the Thornapple Valley plant closed in 1998.

The new Coldwater plant is expected to reach peak production by February of next year handling 10-thousand hogs a day.

Clemens Food Group is based in Hatfield, Pennsylvania and offers brands including Premium Reserve, Hatfield, Red’s, Prima Porta, and Nick’s. They also offer many products for the restaurants and institutional food services.

Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.