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Prestage will seek another location for Iowa pork plant

Dr. Ron Prestage of Prestage Farms says they will pursue another location for their proposed pork processing plant in Iowa.

Prestage tells Brownfield that, while they were disappointed by the Mason City City Council’s rejection of their plan, it will not deter them from finding another location for the plant.

“Prestage Farms fully intends to pursue building a plant here in Iowa,” Prestage says. “We’re going to be looking at a different location. We were contacted yesterday by several individuals interested in us looking at their towns.”

Prestage says opponents of the plant, led by the group Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, used “outrageous claims” to create negative perceptions about the plant in Mason City.

“Iowa is not immune to the fact that you’ve got some kooks out there that actually try to kill the absolute biggest strength that the state has,” he says. “I guess we were naïve. We’ll be a little better prepared to deal with those kooks going forward.”

Finding a new location will probably change the timetable for the plant, which they had hoped to have operational by 2018, Prestage says.

“I don’t know if that will take a month or six months—my guess is we’ve probably missed the window of opportunity to get construction underway in 2016.”

Prestage is the immediate past president of the National Pork Producers Council.

AUDIO: Ron Prestage