West Liberty Foods

American meat processing company owned by the Iowa Turkey Growers Cooperative, formed in 1996

West Liberty Foods, L. L. C. is a farmer owned food company headquartered in West Liberty, Iowa. Recognized as one of the top 50 protein processors in North America, the company has the capacity to produce over 650 million pounds of food products per year across four facilities. According to The National Provisioner, West Liberty Foods is the 34th largest meat and poultry processor in the United States. West Liberty Foods meat and poultry products can be found in grocery stores and restaurant chains nationwide. West Liberty Foods has four locations: West Liberty, Iowa; Mount Pleasant, Iowa; Tremonton, Utah; and Bolingbrook, Illinois.

The company primarily provides meat for other marketing brands, producing 90% of its product for customers while selling only 10% under the West Liberty Foods brand name. In addition to slaughtering turkeys, the company produces prepared beef, chicken, pork, and turkey products. Company revenue has grown rapidly with US$65 million in sales during 1997, $120 million in 2000, and $200 million in 2003. Most recently, West Liberty Foods posted $442 million in revenue for 2006, making the company the 56th largest meat packing company by sales in the United States. Much of the company's sales come from large nationwide foodservice customers, and as of 2006, was Subway's largest supplier of sliced sandwich meat, providing the franchise with more than 1 million pounds per week. West Liberty Foods' three plants have been ISO 14001 certified for meeting environmental management standards, and the West Liberty plant was the first turkey processing plant in the United States to receive this certification. West Liberty Foods maintains separate facilities for research and development and laboratory testing services. They are housed in adjacent buildings several blocks from the plant in West Liberty. The R&D facility includes testing space for both raw and cooked product, and can create test products from start to finish, including initial formulation, final slicing, and packaging. This system can return results within 30 hours of production. Oscar Mayer helped West Liberty Foods by promising to purchase half of the plant's output in 1997 and a quarter of the output in 1998 to help the startup company. Production under ITGC ownership began in January 1997. Company leadership changed in 2004 as Ed Garrett was named president and COO when Rutledge resigned to take a position with another growers' organization. In 2006, the company entered into a marketing alliance agreement with Midvale, Utah, based Norbest Foods. On April 9, 2020 three workers were infected with COVID 19 at the company's plant in West Liberty, Iowa resulting in a shut down until April 14 due to sanitization being done.

In 2004, workers at the West Liberty plant considered joining the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW). On July 1, 2004, the workers voted on whether they would be represented by UFCW Local 431. On February 1, 2005 the company and UFCW settled their dispute. UFCW withdrew its objections, and West Liberty Foods posted a notice that they would not close the plant or fire workers if employees unionized. The vote was 231 to 322 against unionization.

The West Liberty plant is a facility which slaughters and further processes turkey products. Louis H. Rich purchased the West Liberty plant, a former tomato canning facility, in 1943, when he decided to expand the operations of the Rock Island Produce Company, located on 9th Street in Rock Island, Illinois. WLF representatives have stated that the goal of the Mount Pleasant plant is to create a pathogen free environment. The plant will not slaughter, will allot for processing and for slicing a variety of meat products. The plant will initially have ten slicing cells allowing production of 150 million pounds per year and will eventually add ten more cells to double the plant's capacity. Similar to the Mount Pleasant plant, a Millard Refrigerated Services facility will be built adjacent to the Tremonton plant for warehouse storage of refrigerated and frozen products. It requested US$5.2 million in tax incentives from Utah to build in Pleasant View, Utah. The incentives were conditioned on the new jobs paying a certain level above the county median wage, offering health insurance, and the company staying in Utah for 10 years. After this development, the state held the incentive offer open provided that West Liberty Foods could find another suitable site that met Utah's requirements. On July 29, 2006, the company announced that they would build the new plant in Tremonton, Utah. Best Business Recycling Program award from Iowa Recycling Association,