Swift Pork Company

Swift Pork Company operates a large hog slaughter and pork processing establishment at 600 South Iowa Avenue in Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa. The plant is listed with USDA FSIS under establishment numbers M85O, P17775 and V85O, with FSIS activities covering meat slaughter, meat processing and export certification. The federal record lists hogs as the only species slaughtered under inspection, a size class of Large, a slaughter volume category of 4.0, and a grant of inspection date on file of February 18, 2020. FSIS records also list the establishment doing business under several related names, including JBS USA Foods Company, Swift & Company, Swift Foods Company, Swift Premium and Van Hessen USA Operations LLC.

The website on file, swiftmeats.com, is a national consumer brand site rather than a plant page. It presents the Swift brand with the line Quality Since 1855 and credits Gustavus Swift as founder, carries recipes for pork and beef cuts, and closes each page with a JBS copyright notice. The site does not describe the Ottumwa facility, its hours, its staff, or any local sales operation. A secondary listing describes the Ottumwa site as a food manufacturing facility with 500 or more employees, and an Iowa Department of Natural Resources document refers to JBS Swift Pork as a fresh pork facility among five Midwest pork processing plants.

No custom-exempt activity is reported to FSIS for this establishment, which means the federal record does not show it processing livestock owned by individual farmers for return to the owner. The brand site directs shoppers to a store locator naming retail chains such as Costco, Kroger, Food Lion, Hannaford, HEB, Stop and Shop, WinCo and others, rather than to an on-site counter. Details beyond the federal record and the brand website are not yet on file.

The federal record lists this establishment for meat slaughter and meat processing of hogs at Large size class, with no custom-exempt activity reported. Nothing in the sources describes booking, minimums, kill dates, cut and wrap sheets, or fees for individual producers, and the brand website does not address livestock intake. Producers interested in delivering animals would need to contact the plant directly at (641) 682-8532 to learn what arrangements, if any, exist.

Swift Pork Company operates under a federal grant of inspection, so product from this plant can be sold anywhere in the United States, which matters if you sell online or across a state line. FSIS does not list a custom-exempt activity for this plant.

The Swift brand website does not mention a retail counter, halves or quarters, bundles, delivery, or online ordering at the Ottumwa plant. Instead it lists a store locator pointing shoppers to select retailers including Costco, Bashas', BJ's, Brookshire Brothers, Food Lion, Hannaford, Lowe's Market, Weis Markets, FoodMaxx, Shaw's and Star Market, Stop and Shop, HEB, Raley's, Stater Bros, Rouses, Cardenas, WinCo and Kroger. Named cuts on the site include pork tenderloin, boneless pork loin, beef top sirloin steak and bone-in beef back ribs.

If you are buying a half or quarter animal, the plant is where the animal is processed; the farm sells you the animal. Read how to buy a half cow for the sequence and the math.