Lamb Weston ready to hire as walls go up

ConAgra Lamb Weston is planning to hold its grand opening ceremonies Nov. 5-6 in Delhi but plant officials say the hiring will begin much sooner.

“We’ve been doing a lot of site preparation, putting in underground utilities and we’re putting up the walls now,” plant manager Doug Beyer said during a tour of the plant Thursday.

Beyer plans called for the sweet potato processing facility to be completed in the fall in time to begin training employees before it officially opened.

Hiring will begin with a series of job fairs March 29.

“The week of March 29, we’ll be hitting the I-20 corridor pretty hard,” human resources director Dan Downard said.

Plans currently call for the Delhi facility to begin operation in October with a staff of about 275 employees from Richland and the surrounding parishes. That number is expecting to eventually grow to between 500 and 600 full time employees. An economic impact study by Louisiana State University estimates the plant will generate $70 million in Louisiana state tax revenue and $19 million in local tax revenue over the next 20 years.

In addition, Beyer said he expects the plant to have a large impact on the local economy by buying its sweet potatoes locally and encouraging growth and innovation in the farming industry.

“Sweet potatoes need to be processed within 24 hours or less,” Beyer explained. “We prefer to buy as much locally as we can and we’re set up for 24-hour receiving.”

He also noted that at the moment most sweet potato production is geared toward the table market and not the processing market. Lamb Weston has been working with the LSU AgCenter sweet potato processing center to develop new strains geared more toward processing into fries and other pre-packaged items.

“There are a whole lot of possibilities,” he said. “We’re wanting to move toward new varieties and that could change the whole game.”

They have also contracted with another company to construct a cold storage warehouse next to their facility. When this plant opens, it, too, will provide jobs and revenue for the area.

“We’re very good at processing sweet potatoes,” Beyer said, and they’re very good at the storage and shipping so we prefer to partner with them and let them handle that side of it.”

Beyer also explained one of the things Lamb Weston is most proud of in their new facility is commitment to energy and environmental excellence.

“Green is important to our customers and to us,” he said. “It’s something we’re working hard on.”

The plant is designed to recycle energy by blending reclaimed methane bio-gas with natural gas to provide heat and energy for the facility in addition to recycling water and has been registered with the United States Green Building Council and designed to follow Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards.