Troubled Idaho Falls, Idaho, Meatpacking Plant Abruptly Shuts Down

A beef and bison processing plant in Idaho Falls, Idaho, has closed its doors and laid off its workforce abruptly a week ago, citing “an abrupt and unforeseeable financial crisis,” according to news reports covering the aftermath.

The relatively new, 66,000-sq.-ft. facility, owned by American Farmers Network and known as Intermountain Packing, closed on April 3, 2026; employees were told to not come to work and gates were locked. About 150 employees were laid off, according to reports.

The company said in a letter to the Dept. of Labor that the financial crisis mentioned above left the plant immediately unable to meet payroll, and that the circumstances around the crisis were unpredictable and did not allow Intermountain to provide the standard 60-day notice of closure.

Construction of the Intermountain Packing facility was announced in 2020, with the plant opening its doors in 2022, with capacity to process up to 500 head per day.

However, the facility struggled with various issues in short order. It was charged with a public nuisance misdemeanor for foul odor emanating from the facility and in December 2023 laid off more than 100 employees. A year later, Intermountain Packing and then-CEO David Adams had a USDA complaint filed against it for alleged violations of the Packers & Stockyards Act for failure to pay more than $3.8 million for livestock supplied to the facility.

In May 2025, Intermountain Packing was acquired by American Farmers Network, and Sanin Mirvic became the company’s new CEO.