US-based meat processing firm Pilgrim's Pride is set to shut down its cooking and cold storage facilities in Chattanooga, Tennessee within the next two weeks, eliminating 200 jobs at the facilities.
The planned closure is a part of the company's restructuring plan which started in May which has seen the operations in Chattanooga moved from the prepared foods division to small bird deboning division.
A Pilgrim's Pride spokesman was quoted by Times Free Press as saying that the affected employees will be offered jobs at Pilgrim's other sites and about 40 jobs have already been added at the deboning facility.
The cooking and cold storage operations are being shifted to the company's modern and efficient facilities in the region.
At the beginning of 2012, the two facilities employed more than 1,500 people but currently there are less than 1,000.
Pilgrim's Pride noted that there will be no changes to its slaughter operations at the Broad Street facilities or deboning operations at Market Street.
Pilgrim's Pride, a subsidiary of the Brazilian food giant JBS, is involved in the production, processing, marketing and distribution of fresh, frozen and value-added chicken products in the US, Mexico and Puerto Rico.
