By Meredith Gardner
meredith.gardner@theindependent.com

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Independent/Barrett Stinson Nebraska Turkey Growers Cooperative Plant workers (from left) Joseph Padilla, Carlos Cepeda, Genevieve Gutierrez and Pedro Luis Cordero place netting on turkeys before they are packed in cases for shipping. The Gibbon plant is celebrating 70 years of operation. Independent/Barrett Stinson Heriberta Contreras (center) grabs a turkey from a conveyor belt in the weighing and coding area of the Nebraska Turkey Growers Cooperative Plant in Gibbon. Click Thumbnails to View

The facility, known as the only turkey processing plant in Nebraska, operates under the Nebraska Turkey Growers Cooperative, which was first incorporated in February 1938.

This year, the plant will do even more to reach out to the community of Gibbon, offering contests, barbecues and, for the first time, plant tours, said Deb VanMatre, president and chief executive officer of the 17-member cooperative.

"We feel that 70 years as a business in this community is something we celebrate," VanMatre said. "We just feel it's a way to give back to the community."

The Turkey Growers Cooperative has undergone a number of changes during those seven decades.

It began as a group of farmers in Buffalo County who agreed to cooperatively sell the turkeys they raised for extra income. For Christmas 1938, they produced 700 turkeys.

Since then, production in the now 115,000-square-foot plant has grown to an excess of 20,000 turkeys per day, and the company employs about 250 people working on two shifts.

The plant's production has changed with the public's taste for turkey.

In the United States, turkey consumption jumped during the 1980s as people began to focus on healthy lifestyles, VanMatre said.

According to the U.S. Turkey Federation, U.S. turkey consumption in 2006 was 16.9 pounds per person.

The industry's goal, VanMatre said, is to raise that number.

To increase its production capacity, the Gibbon plant's infrastructure has seen major upgrades during the past six months.

The facility's refrigeration, water system, processing, packaging and deep freezing systems, among others, have all been updated.

Currently, Norbest supplies grocers and food distributors in the United States and internationally with whole birds and raw bird parts as well as oven-roasted turkeys and whole smoked turkeys, breasts and drumsticks.

The cooperative plans to continue to expand its oven capacity to increase its production of smoked and fully cooked turkeys, which are becoming more popular now because of their convenience, VanMatre said.

Also this year, the plant hopes to open a retail outlet for local residents to purchase Norbest products.

As it looks to the future, the cooperative will work toward increasing the number of turkey producers in Nebraska, for whom the Norbest plant can become an extension of the farm, VanMatre said.

It's also doing a study of the Norbest brand, which may lead to the addition of other products.

Efficiency and growth will be the keys to the cooperative's success for another 70 years, VanMatre said.

"We need to fill the plant," she said. "Volume makes the difference."