Simmons Prepared Foods officially dedicated its new chicken processing facility in Benton County, Arkansas.

The project, announced in September 2017, will relocate the current Decatur facility approximately two miles away to the site between Gentry and Decatur. Scheduled to open in 2019, the new facility will provide high-quality fresh and frozen chicken products to retail and restaurant customers.

“We are excited to dedicate the site of our new facility in Benton County and officially mark the start of construction and the opportunities this facility will bring to this area,” said Todd Simmons, CEO & Vice Chairman, Simmons Foods. “Benton County has been our home for nearly 70 years, and we are proud to build on that strong foundation and look forward to this new facility being a vital part of Benton County’s growth.”

“Arkansas is a great place to do business, and we are pleased that Simmons Prepared Foods made the decision to invest in this community and our state,” said Mike Preston, Executive Director of Arkansas Economic Development Commission. “New jobs and additional opportunities will be available when the facility is in operation in 2019.”

An affiliate of Simmons Foods, Simmons Prepared Foods is a farm-to-fork poultry producer based in Siloam Springs, Arkansas. Simmons operates 3 hatcheries and 2 feed mills which supply nearly 300 independent poultry growers and 20+ company managed farms who raise approximately 200 million birds per year. The company’s 6 processing plants produce 750 million pounds of finished product per year for customer brands around the world. Last year, Simmons began offering chicken raised without the use of antibiotics important to human medicine. This year, Simmons began offering No Antibiotics Ever (NAE) products.