Pilgrim's Pride has announced a strategic capital investment to expand and modernize its poultry processing facility in Ellijay, Georgia, the company said Thursday, citing accelerating consumer demand and the need to support key customer growth commitments.
The Greeley, Colorado-based producer — one of the largest chicken companies in the United States and a majority-owned subsidiary of Brazil's JBS — did not disclose the dollar value of the investment or a timeline for completion. The announcement positions Ellijay as a priority site in what executives have described as an ongoing drive toward operational excellence and throughput efficiency across the company's domestic network.
The move comes at a moment of broadly favorable fundamentals for U.S. poultry processors. Feed-cost pressures that weighed on margins through much of 2023 and 2024 have eased, and retail and foodservice demand for value-priced proteins — chicken chief among them — has remained resilient as consumers continue to trade down from beef and pork. Industry analysts have flagged capacity utilization as a key swing factor for per-unit profitability in 2026 and beyond, making plant-level investment decisions strategically significant even when specific figures are not disclosed.
Ellijay, situated in the mountainous northwest corner of Georgia, sits within a well-established poultry corridor that includes processing, hatchery, and grow-out infrastructure. Modernization projects at existing plants — rather than greenfield builds — have become the preferred capital-deployment vehicle for major processors seeking to reduce per-unit costs while limiting permitting risk and construction lead times. For Pilgrim's, which reported net revenues of approximately $17 billion in its most recent full fiscal year, incremental capacity at proven facilities represents a lower-risk path to volume growth than new-site development.
Pilgrim's has not provided specific production-volume targets or employment figures tied to the Ellijay expansion. Industry observers will be watching for further detail when the company next reports quarterly earnings, where management is likely to frame the project within its broader capital-expenditure guidance. Food & Beverage Magazine has tracked a wider pattern of domestic protein producers accelerating facility upgrades as labor-market conditions in rural processing markets stabilize.
The announcement reinforces a broader posture among the top tier of U.S. chicken producers — including Tyson Foods and Koch Foods — to invest defensively in existing infrastructure ahead of any demand softening, locking in efficiency gains while input costs remain manageable. Investors and procurement teams at major quick-service and retail accounts will monitor execution closely, given the role plant-level reliability plays in long-term supply-chain contracting in the poultry sector. Additional details on capacity additions and capital expenditure trends across the protein sector are expected to emerge in coming quarters.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.