The two new plants, both in Henan province, bring OSI total number of facilities in the country to 10, and include a multi-protein further processing plant and an integrated poultry operation.
At 208,000sq-m, the further processing plant will be OSI’s biggest globally, and will process meat and poultry for domestic and overseas markets. It will first be used to process par-fried and fully cooked chicken products and will be expanded by 2016 to include high-speed lines and value-added beef processing.
The adjacent poultry operation – a joint-venture between OSI and poultry producer Doyoo Group – will provide the raw material to the processing plant. It is certified halal and has the capacity to process 120m birds per year, making it the single largest poultry processing facility in China.
“OSI Henan will become the largest further processing facility for value-added meat in all of Asia,” said Brent Afman, the company’s regional managing director.
According to David McDonald, OSI’s president, the company will continue to make large investments in China.
“There is no place in the world growing as quickly as China, and we feel fortunate to be part of it,” McDonald said.
“We look at China as the number one growth effort among all our global activities.”