IEDA awards incentives for Howard County beef processing facility

LIME SPRINGS — The Iowa Economic Development Authority has approved state incentives for a Howard County beef processing facility.

IEDA spokeswoman Jacque Matsen says tax incentives have been approved for Upper Iowa Beef in Lime Springs.  “This is a locally sourced state-of-the-art beef processing facility in Lime Springs. It was previously called Lime Springs Beef and now is changing to Upper Iowa Beef as they look to expand their production capacity,” Matsen says. 

She says they want to dramatically increase their production. “They’ve been very successful in their first couple of years of operation and now are looking to add additional square footage onto their existing facility — which will mean they will be able to increase their processing capacity from about 500 head to about 15-hundred head per week,” Matsen explains.

The additional capacity will require them to hire more workers. “It’s a total of 75 additional jobs in the community, and it’s an also nearly seven-million dollar capital investment going into the Lime Springs area,” Matsen says.

Twenty of the new jobs will have a wage of nearly 22 dollars-an-hour.