Missouri Partnership works with several state, regional, and local partners to help amplify our message about the top sectors of Missouri’s diverse economy. One of them being the food and beverage industry, where there is a unique opportunity for one new project to directly impact multiple businesses and communities in rural Missouri.
Subash Alias, CEO at Missouri Partnership, sat down with Michael Clements, host of the Corn Talk podcast, to discuss Missouri Partnership’s efforts to attract new food and agriculture companies to the state and what that means for rural Missouri. Here’s a preview:
Michael Clements:
You had mentioned sometimes focusing on specific industries, one of those being agriculture. So why the focus there?
Subash Alias:
The bigger aspect is to say maybe food and beverage processing and then agtech. We’ve attracted a lot of food and beverage companies to Missouri. The one that has really kind of opened up our eyes a bit has been the American Foods Group project that is under construction in Warren County. They’re creating 1,300 jobs and investing $800 million in a new 2,400 cattle a day beef processing plant. That economic impact goes throughout all of Missouri. The farmers that are raising cattle can take their cattle to this particular facility. Then they might raise more cattle because of that opportunity that cattle needs feed, such as corn which encourages farmers to grow more grains. We call that the multiplier effect, when one manufacturing plant can potentially attract some suppliers to support it. But in this particular case, it’s propping up the cattle industry and then propping up corn and some of the other agricultural commodities.
Listen to the full episode here: