Farmers Produce, a subsidiary of Cloverleaf Cold Storage, Sioux City, Iowa, is increasing the size of its Sanford, N.C., production facility.

Originally planned to encompass 40,000 square feet of processing and support space, the project will now finish out at 100,000 square feet.

The Sanford location will be the fourth Farmers Produce production facility. Farmers Produces specializes in short-run, custom-designed processing projects, including controlled-temperature defrosting, boxing, trimming, exporting and special component packaging. Strategically located in the heart of a major protein production region, the facility will provide services to the pork, poultry and beef industries in a USDA-inspected official establishment.

“Customer response to our announcement that we were locating in the Middle Atlantic region was so positive that we decided to jump ahead our planned phase 2 and build everything at once,” says Tim Gibbs, vice president of farmers operations.

The facility is expected to be in operation in the fourth quarter of 2012.