Butterball Plant Will Shut Down.

Butterball has announced that high production costs are forcing them to close their massive turkey processing plant in Colorado by the end of 2011.

The America’s largest turkey producer says business just isn’t what it used to be. The cost of producing turkey is significantly reducing Butterball’s profits and rising grain prices are partly to blame. The increasing price of soymeal costs Butterball $65 million more every year and the company hopes that closing the Colorado plant will prevent more plant closures around the country.

Grain prices are bad but Butterball’s image is worse.  In 2006, investigators caught Butterball workers on camera jumping on birds until they popped and their insides came out of their rectums.  Along with high grain prices, paying PR staff to field inquires about the extreme abuses at Butterball facilities no doubt added to the overall cost of the product as well.

The Longmont, Colorado turkey plant is one of the largest in the nation and employs 350 people.  The facility is one-of-six Butterball plants in the US and there is no telling whether this measure will save the company or just slow their eventual collapse from ever increasing production costs. 

Folks on the “Turkey Talk” line should be worried.