-January 2,2022-
Developer,farmer and water trader John Vidovich plans to build a beef feedlot and processing plant near Lemoore according to a preliminary application filed with the county.The 789 acre project would be located along Highway 41 just south of 198.Located on property owned by Vidovich, the land is zone for ag.According to their application, Sandridge Cattle wants to develop land in Kings County to construct and operate a cattle feedlot and beef harvesting plant on 250 acres of the larger parcel.
The proposed feedlot will grow cattle in” a healthy, well‐managed, cattle friendly environment and cattle will be fed natural grain/hay and receive no hormones. The beef harvesting plant will produce high quality and dry aged beef for bulk sale to consumers. The beef harvesting plant will make use of humane slaughter techniques using kosher and halal methods.”
The feedlot portion encompasses approximately 215 acres of the site and includes approximately 120 acres of corrals, a 300,000 sf beef loading and processing center, a horse barn, 275,000 sf manure lagoon, 50,000 sf manure basin, 336,800 sf silage pad, 60,000 sf silage lagoon run‐off, 6,500 sf commodity barn, and 5,000 sf equipment shop. At capacity, the cattle feedlot will be designed for a maximum of 12,600 cattle.
70 employees- small volume
The feedlot would be operated 7 days a week from 7am to 4 pm would require 7 full‐time employees to manage and run the daily feedlot operations. During operations, the feedlot would receive approximately 30 feed deliveries and 4 cattle deliveries per week.
There would be a small walk-in customer retail store on site.
The beef harvesting plant includes approximately 72,000 sf of building space consisting of livestock loading areas, a kill floor, coolers, cold storage, dry storage, a cut room, offices, employee facilities and 1,900 sf of retail space. This facility will be used to slaughter, butcher, process, and distribute bulk beef products using kosher and halal slaughter techniques. At capacity, the beef harvesting plant would harvest a maximum of 120 cattle per day.
The plant would be operated Monday‐Friday from 6am to 11pm and would require 60 full‐time employees to run the daily beef harvesting plant operations at maximum capacity.
By contrast, the Sandridge beef operation would be small compared to Central Valley Meat’s large and expanding operation on the outskirts of Hanford. With Sandridge cattle harvesting just 120 cattle a day, Central Valley Meat plans to do a two-phase expansion of its beef processing plant that already processes about 1,500 head of cattle a day. According to the application approved in the past year, the company plans to increase the capacity three-fold to 4,500 head a day.