Gold Kist Officially Opens $70 Million Expansion in Florida

03/10/06 Gold Kist Inc. will celebrate the official opening of the $70 million, 180,000-square-foot expansion of its Live Oak, Fla., poultry processing facility on November 2, 2006 at 10 a.m. The ribbon-cutting ceremony will feature a keynote address by Florida Commissioner of Agriculture Charles H. Bronson.

"This expansion is the largest single investment that Gold Kist has ever made in a facility. It doubles the plant's capacity to produce value added products and allows us to support the tremendous growth of Publix Super Markets, one of our largest private label retail customers," said John Bekkers, Gold Kist President and CEO. "The expansion is an integral part of our strategic plan to increase production of value added products and builds on our company's success as industry leader in private label products."

Part of the plant's expansion includes the addition of new air chilling technology that cools the chickens using fresh, filtered cold air rather than water immersion. Using this technology, Gold Kist will process chickens that are antibiotic-free and raised on an all-vegetable diet. This new product was developed to help supply the double-digit sales growth of natural foods in retail supermarkets. Gold Kist is the first major chicken processor in the United States to offer this antibiotic free, air chilled premium product line that will be marketed first by Publix under the GreenWise Market label.

The new Gold Kist facility in Live Oak, Fla., incorporates the latest food safety technology and utilizes advanced robotic product inventory and order processing system that is designed to ensure proper product rotation and rapid assembly of customers' orders. In addition, the expansion will provide modern employee welfare and training facilities. As a result of the expansion, Gold Kist has added 100 new employees.