If there's meat on the table, chances are it might have come from an area packer

Cargill Meat Solutions in Schuyler serves up new technology on the production lines at the company’s Schuyler plant on a regular basis.

The latest innovation was completed in recent months with the revamping of the plant’s ground beef line to make for more efficient use of trimmings, said Vaughn Blum, general manager of the meat processing plant on the western edge of Schuyler.

“It was a $12 million to $15 million project,’’ said Blum, adding the plant plans a “major” renovation later this year.

An announcement on Cargill’s possible plans won’t be made for a few months, he said.

The Schuyler facility opened in September 1968 with the processing of 10 head of cattle. The plant’s Fabrication Division began operations in the spring of 1974, with Cargill acquiring the plant 13 years later.

Today, the Cargill plant is by far the largest employer in the area, with 1,900 production workers and 300 management staff. Of that total, 85 percent of the work force lives within a 45-mile radius of the plant, with 45 percent having Schuyler addresses.

Cargill’s payroll is approximately $50 million annually ($900,000 a week) and the company spends about the same amount from local and outside-the-area vendors. The plant spends about $5 million a year for utilities.

The plant ships out nearly 1,000 trucks a week packed with meat products.

The Schuyler plant buys and processes 1.2 million head a year, with most purchased (from cattle feeders) from within a 100 to 120miles of the facility, Blum said.

Cattle feeders from Nebraska, southern South Dakota, southeast Minnesota and western Iowa supply the cattle for processing. The bulk of the cattle are bought from Nebraska feeders.

The Schuyler plant’s operation begins with livestock arriving at the stock yards. The staging area for cattle has a holding capacity of 2,000 head.

When the cattle move to the kill floor, a process that takes about 45 minutes, workers handle about 300 to 330 head an hour. Two shifts of workers process 4,800 head a day.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture inspection team and Cargill’s in-house quality assurance staff monitor the process.

Other areas of the plant include the hot box, where meat is chilled while the USDA determines the grade. The box has a capacity of 6,000 head. A separate area cleans and grades cattle hides, with the hides shipped fresh to a tanner for further processing.

In the processing department, the cattle carcasses are broken down into primal cuts. They are then trimmed, packaged and weighed before shipping. The department currently produces more than 800 labeled products, including more than 400,000 pounds of hamburger a day.

Meat is chilled and stored in the box storage cooler, a fully-automated system with an average loading rate onto shipping trucks of 1,600 boxes an hour. The cooler has a capacity of 42,000boxes of meat.

Meat products from the Schuyler plant are shipped primarily to the Northeast, cities such as New York and Philadelphia, with a significant amount of products also shipped out to Asian markets.

Cargill isn’t the area meat processing plant for livestock feeders.

Tyson Fresh Meats spent nearly $300 million at its Madison plant last year to put pork products on consumers’ tables, processing everything from loins to picnic hams and spareribs.

The Madison plant spent $284 million on hogs during the last fiscal year to supply the more than 30-year-old facility, according to information released by Gary Mickelson of the company.

The Madison plant was built by Madison Foods Inc. in the early-1970s and was purchased by IBP Inc. in 1976. Tyson Foods acquired IBP in 2001. The plant, located 25 miles south of Norfolk, employs about 1,100 workers with a payroll about about $34 million annually.

Mickelson said the plant’s operations include fresh pork processing and ham processing, cooking and packaging.

The products are typically vacuum-packed and boxed for sale to retail, wholesale and food service operators domestically and internationally.

The plant specializes in producing boneless products that are sold to other meat companies for further processing and cooking. The facility also includes a ham operation that processes, cooks and packages hams.

Tyson markets the total animal, Mickelson said, selling trimmings to sausage manufacturers and glands to pharmaceutical companies. Fat and bone are used as a base for various edible and inedible products, he said.