Sanderson Farms, Laurel, Miss., opened a new $155 million processing plant and wastewater treatment facility in St. Pauls, N.C. This new 180,000-square-foot facility will accompany the existing 65,000-square-foot hatchery located in Lumberton, N.C., as well as a feed mill in Kinston, N.C., making it the company’s 11th fully integrated poultry processing facility nationwide.

The new deboning facility will provide greater accessibility to the East Coast market as well as employ 1,100 workers in the St. Pauls community, with an additional 100 contract growers.

The facility features the latest technology in the poultry industry, including food safety, employee welfare and environmental conservation. The St. Pauls facility, which was built on a Greenfield site, will utilize a mechanical wastewater treatment system for recycling wastewater to be used on a neighboring 1,500-acre plot of land owned by the company.

The state-of-the-art poultry complex will process 1.25 million birds per week for the big bird deboning market, and will sell approximately 500 million pounds of dressed poultry meat annually.