Business leaders, elected officials, and employees gathered to celebrate the groundbreaking ceremony for Blue Ridge Foods on November 15, 2019 in Greenwood, Mississippi. The company's expansion of their high-quality meat products includes an investment of $2 million to launch the 31,000 square-foot beef processing, warehouse and distribution facility.
With Billy Peacock leading the project for CAVS-E, a design for the layout of the plant was developed, which can handle their unique needs of processing and distribution. The project also consisted of benchmarking other facilities in the southeast to design the most efficient operation for the plant. Other Mississippi State University team members of the project were Jonathan Curtis (Research Engineer, CAVS-E) and Dr. Byron Williams (Associate Extension Professor, Food Science). Also working on the project, in addition to the MSU team, were Wes Smith, Blue Ridge Greenwood, Steve Waldrop, Blue Ridge South Carolina, and Tim Busha, Blue Ridge South Carolina.
This new facility is expected to create 20 jobs and will provide additional resources for the company to expand distribution and reach suppliers located west of the Mississippi River. Renovations and construction are expected to be completed by May of 2020 for the new site.
For more information about the programs and services of CAVS-E, visit cavse.msstate.edu.
