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Nebraska Public Media - A crane looms above a dusty field just outside of North Platte, where trucks loaded with dirt criss-cross the busy site and workers set up a foundation. Two years ago, an old sewer lagoon took up this stretch of land. Cattails and marshy soil made the field a swampy mess.

Today, it’s the future site of Sustainable Beef, a meatpacking plant that Nebraska ranchers and cattle feeders began organizing in 2020.

June 2023

ruralradio.com - Over three years ago, the North Platte City Council approved the construction of Sustainable Beef, a rancher-led meat processing plant in North Platte. Walmart has since invested as a minority stakeholder in the project.  

Ryan Wagnon, the general manager of Sustainable Beef, confirmed that the plant is scheduled to open in spring of 2025.  

October 2024

Progressive Farmer - AMES, Iowa (DTN) -- Packing plant fires, COVID-19 shutdowns and other black swan-type events that affected the beef packing industry led Trey Wasserburger five years ago to start discussions with several of his contacts about how to prevent such similar events from affecting the beef industry so dramatically.

"No one told me how hard it would be to convince a city to let us build a beef plant," he said during an address at the Iowa Cattlemen's Association Convention in Ames, Iowa, recently. "I knew we had to have the three Cs to be able to build -- the city, the cattle and the capital." But it took a lot more than just those three factors.

January 2025