State and community officials joined Wednesday to welcome the opening of Perdue Foods’ new Southeastern Distribution Center in Rincon. The company said it is creating more than 150 jobs with this new facility with over 47,000 square feet.
The facility takes fresh packaged chicken products from Perdue plants which are then weighed, priced and labeled, and then are shipped to their customers in the region. Perdue officials said the company has invested $5 million as part of a lease partnership with Lineage Logistics, a large temperature controlled supply chain and logistics provider.
“Lineage has been a warehouse services provider to Perdue for more than two decades and their investments in updated technology will help us better serve our Southeast customers,” said president of Perdue Premium Poultry and Meats, Mark McKay. The new facility is designed to support growing the company’s No-Antibiotics-Ever and organic poultry products, officials said.
McKay said this is part of a growth strategy for the company.
“We’ve had demand for Perdue products growing down into the Southeast and we’ve continued to move down there. Our partnership with Lineage Logistics gives us a couple of things, in addition to the 150 jobs it has created for the local economy here, it gives us a foothold in this part of the state and allows us to access literally the entire southeast from this distribution center,” McKay said. He said their vision is to be the most trusted name in food and agricultural products.
Lineage President and CEO, Greg Lehmkuhl, began his remarks with a chicken joke: “Why did the chicken cross the ocean 6 months ago? ...To avoid the tariffs.” He talked about the strong partnership the company has developed with Perdue and how much the new Rincon facility would add to its network throughout Georgia. Lineage also announced donations of $5,000 to Feeding America and $5,000 to the United Way.
Perdue, which celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2020, also made a $5,000 donation to the United Way of the Coastal Empire, and it has partnered with Feeding America and its network of food bank partners through the country. McKay said that the family-owned company has a culture of giving in the local community. Perdue will deliver 20,000 pounds of protein – 26 pallets of product – to America’s Second Harvest of Coastal Georgia in Savannah. “We are so excited. You know there are over 147,000 people in coastal Georgia that live with food insecurity and your support is going to help us be able to make sure that children and seniors and families don’t go to bed hungry at night,” said the food bank’s executive director, Mary Jane Crouch.
Crouch said the truckload of chicken would last about two or three weeks and would make a big difference for the 285 non-profit organizations that work to feed low-income families. Donations like this one will impact Chatham, Effingham, Liberty, and Bryan counties among the 21 counties that Second Harvest serves, she said.
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