Wayne Farms hiring up to 500 for expanded plant

Wayne Farms in August will begin hiring between 400 and 500 people to work at its fresh processing facility in Dothan, Alabama.
The company announced plans to expand the plant in May. That expansion is expected to double the facility’s capacity and includes building an additional 42,000 square feet for the already existing structure. Construction related to the plant expansion began in June and is expected to be completed in 2016.
At the present time, the company employs about 356 workers at the facility, which includes a slaughter and cut-up line, according to a report from the Dothan Eagle. The jobs to become available in August will include production and maintenance workers.
The expansion is expected to restore jobs at the facility that were lost after the company announced in 2014 it was discontinuing its deboning lines there.
The facility was built in 1968 and was a Sunnyland pork production facility. The plant was sold in 1986 and converted to a Showell Farms poultry plant. It was sold in 1995 to Perdue Farms and eventually sold again in 2013 to Wayne Farms.
According to the WATTAgNet Top Poultry Companies Database, Wayne Farms processes 335.4 million birds annually. It has nine slaughter plants, nine hatcheries, eight feed mills and 3,575 growout houses. It is the sixth largest broiler company in the United States.