Aviagen Feed Plant Under Construction

Aviagen’s new poultry feed plant is going up on Sallisaw’s south side, and is 

expected to open in August with six full-time employees.

Construction is underway for the new Aviagen® poultry feed processing operation in Sallisaw.

Clayton Lucas, Sallisaw city manager, said Sallisaw City Commissioners, as the Sallisaw Municipal Authority, will vote on providing the new feed plant with a new three-phase power line at their next regular meeting on Monday.

The new plant, expected to have six full-time employees, is just southeast of the Sallisaw Municipal Airport on the city’s south side.

Aviagen, the world’s leading poultry genetics company, expects to open the new facility in August 2017.

Feed purchased from a local mill and mixed to Aviagen’s high nutrition standards will be sanitized at the Sallisaw facility using an advanced thermal treatment system known as a hygieniser. The state-of-the-art feed hygieniser, manufactured by California Pellet Mill, features energy efficiency, along with excellent feed sanitation and conditioning. The end benefit will be maximum feed quality for Aviagen flocks and those of its customers.

Once the feed is hygienised, it is cooled, stored and prepared for transporting to Aviagen farms as well as to company-contracted poultry producers in the Oklahoma area.

Aviagen invested $4.1 million in the facility, which will perform at a production capacity of 500 tons week, or 26,000 tons per year.

In addition to undergoing the sanitation process of the hygieniser, feed processed at the Sallisaw facility will be further protected by the strict biosecurity practices and monitoring programs inherent in all Aviagen facilities. These biosecurity guidelines are designed to completely isolate feed from atmospheric and other contaminants capable of threatening the quality of feed for our broiler breeding flocks.

Lucas said Aviagen, which has a hatchery facility in the Sallisaw industrial park, had to build the new feed plant off the park site to protect the eggs and chicks at the hatchery.

“Aviagen was the first poultry company in the U.S. to design and build a feed mill that has such high standards for preventing contamination, and we continue this extraordinary level of biosecurity at the Oklahoma feed processing facility,” explains Kevin McDaniel, president of Aviagen North America. “By installing this new facility featuring the largest and most biosecure hygienisers ever manufactured, we’re keeping up with our growing demand for feed while ensuring the health of our flocks.”

Sally Maxwell, Senior News Director

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