Newcomer to CBJ’s Largest Privately Held Companies list West Liberty Foods has been a staple of Eastern Iowa for many turkey growers since its inception.
Following the closure of a Kraft-owned West Liberty turkey processing plant in April 1996, the Iowa Turkey Growers Cooperative formed to purchase the plant and a nearby feed mill in Ellsworth, Iowa. The plant was purchased by the co-op in December 1996 and reopened as West Liberty Foods in January 1997.
Current President and CEO Brandon Achen’s family was one of the original founders of the cooperative. He began tenure as president in 2020 — adding CEO responsibilities in March 2022.
Since Mr. Achen took over the top executive position, the company has seen a lot of changes. West Liberty Foods announced the closure of its Mount Pleasant, Iowa, plant in October 2022 while it works on building a new facility in its hometown. The company has also struggled with COVID-19, supply chain shortages, and the difficult inflation rates of 2022.
“My goals and outlook going forward are that we need to diversify our business,” he said. “We’ve gone a long time with one customer that was close to 70 percent of all of our revenue. We’re working to change that right now. That customer is still a great customer and we still have a long term contract with them, but it’s changing now.”
Mr. Achen said the company is investing and growing its marketing, sales, research and engineering teams to increase the customer base in the next few years.
Part of the growth planned for the company, he said, is in trying new strategies within the farmer-owned food company.
“We want to expand,” he said. “We’re expanding in a new area. My strategy is to take turkey, which is the product we produce, and to take it as far down the value stream as possible. We want to take turkey and get it as close as possible to the consumer, but not having a brand … Our goal is to take the product, with our customers, and add as much value as possible.”
The company has had a lot of success with made-to-eat, grab-and-go sandwiches since 2020, Mr. Achen said. The company’s Bolingbrook, Illinois, plant has the technology for West Liberty Food’s pre-made sandwich endeavors. Additional technology will be in the new Kansas City plant once it’s built, he said.
The National Provisioner ranked West Liberty Foods 40th in its 2022 Top 100 Meat and Poultry Processors list.
The company has become so much more than a meat processing plant, Mr. Achen said, and it will continue to grow and change with the times. He said the company is focusing on automation at its four facilities across the U.S. and looking at areas within the company for changes as its services some of the biggest retailers in the world.
While West Liberty Foods has plants in Illinois, Utah and Iowa while eyeing expansions elsewhere, Mr. Achen said the company will keep its headquarters in the Midwest for the foreseeable future.
“This is where the heartbeat of the company is,” he said. “(It’s) where the turkeys are raised and harvested and our owners are all from Iowa. I want to keep the heart, the heartbeat, and the culture of the company in Iowa … If we moved it, we would lose a lot of the knowledge and the passion for the company that we have right here that’s ingrained here.”
West Liberty Foods details:
2022 Revenue: $825 M
Established: 1996
Top Executive: Brandon Achen, President & CEO
This article was originally published in the CBJ’s Largest Privately Held Companies magazine.
In 2023, this magazine celebrated its tenth anniversary, after a three-year hiatus due to the pandemic. It featured a look back through the last decade and a glimpse into the future of the Corridor’s biggest, and most impactful, companies. Through in-depth interviews and people-focussed articles, the magazine explored how these industry titans have supported and inspired their communities through hardship and prosperity, and how they plan to continue their involvement for years to come.
