El
Mexicano plant likes Tyson pork
By Art cullen
Wouldn’t
you know it: the meatpacking plant in Santa Rita buys
its pork bellies from Tyson Fresh Meats, and they may
well come from Storm Lake.
El
Mexicano meat processing operates on the outskirts of
town, employing 140 production workers on two shifts
plus a night clean-up crew. The plant will double its
employment over the next year as it expands ham
processing.
El
Mexicano was built in the 1920s as a slaughter plant.
It was reopened without slaughter in 1990, according to
Manuel Loy, plant manager and son of the owner.
It makes
hot dogs, sausages, ham, sausage, chorizo, bacon and
pork chops.
The pork
comes from Tyson, the turkey from the Carolinas in the
US. No turkey comes from Sara Lee.
It
produces 850 tons of product per month. All of it is
marketed in 16 states of Mexico. El Mexicano is the
largest processor in Jalisco.
The plant
hopes to export to the United States next year. The
plant is inspected by the Mexican federal government,
with a veterinarian on site. Loy says the inspection
standards are similar, but the rules still make it
tough to get into the US market.
“They
want us to buy their product, but they don’t want
us to sell into the United States,” he said.
“But there are a lot of opportunities in our
domestic market.”
Meat
consumption is rising about 2% per year in Mexico,
according to El Mexicano Marketing Manager Fernando
Floyd.
