JBS USA to Transform Former Ankeny, Iowa, Hy-Vee Plant into RTE Bacon, Sausage Production

JBS USA will purchase an Ankeny, Iowa, production facility and build it out to be the largest ready-to-eat bacon and RTE sausage plant in the company’s U.S. portfolio, according to an agreement reached with the facility’s previous owner, Hy-Vee.

The company will invest $100 million to buy the 186,000-sq.-ft. plant and renovate it to produce the RTE meat products. Though the facility previously made other types of products for Hy-Vee, JBS said in the release that it was looking to hire former employees of the facility to work at the plant once it was re-opened under the JBS USA banner.

The plant is expected to be operational by mid-2026 and to create about 400 jobs once all phases of the project are complete. JBS USA already operates production facilities in Council Bluffs, Marshalltown and Ottumwa, Iowa, and announced the construction of a fresh sausage plant in Perry, Iowa, in May 2025.

JBS USA anticipates that the Perry facility will provide sausage products to the Ankeny facility to be cooked, packed and shipped through value-added product channels. The two cities are about 30 miles apart by road.

The move aligns with JBS USA’s multi-year move to offer more value-added and prepared foods products to consumers, as discussed extensively two years ago when the company won Food Processing’s Processor of the Year award. It also comes some four years after the company opened a new fully cooked bacon facility in Moberly, Mo., that has already expanded.