Information
The company primarily provides meat for other marketing brands, producing 90% of its product for customers while selling only 10% under the West Liberty Foods brand name. In addition to slaughtering turkeys, the company produces prepared beef, chicken, pork, and turkey products. Company revenue has grown rapidly with US$65 million in sales during 1997, US$120 million in 2000, and US$200 million in 2003. Most recently, West Liberty Foods posted US$442 million in revenue for 2006, making the company the 56th largest meat packing company by sales in the United States. Much of the company's sales come from large nationwide foodservice customers, and, as of 2006, was Subway's largest supplier of sliced sandwich meat, providing the franchise with more than 1 million pounds per week. As a result of servicing national customers, the company is inspected more than other food manufacturers. West Liberty Foods' three plants have been ISO 14001 certified for meeting environmental management standards, and the West Liberty plant was the first turkey processing plant in the United States to receive this certification.
West Liberty Foods maintains separate facilities for research and development and laboratory testing services. They are housed in adjacent buildings several blocks from the plant in West Liberty. The R&D facility includes testing space for both raw and cooked product, and can create test products from start to finish, including initial formulation, final slicing, and packaging. The lab conducts product quality testing for the three production facilities and uses polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology for rapid bacteriological testing. This system can return results within 30 hours of production.
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