The Story

Claxton Poultry, a certified Women’s Business Enterprise (WBE) business headquartered in Claxton, Georgia, is building a new processing plant in Sylvania, Georgia. The facility will be in a non-metro low-income community, in a USDA persistent poverty county. The plant will be approximately 40,000 square feet with new equipment for the purpose of deboning, sizing and marinating chicken and will include 3 shifts and create 225 new jobs and retain 2 more. This deboning facility will be able to process approximately 50 million pounds of chicken annually for nationally branded clients.

The Financing

• Total Project Cost: $16.4 million
• MuniStrategies Allocation: $8 million (additional $7 million from Carver CDE)

The Impacts

• Economic:  In addition to the direct jobs and economic impact of the processing plant itself, this serves as an engine for dozens of family owned poultry farms located in low income, rural areas that derive their livelihood from a local ecosystem of sourcing and processing poultry. It’s estimated that the indirect financial impact of this facility will be over $50 million annually.
• Jobs:  The Claxton facility will create 225 new full time jobs and maintain 2 additional jobs as a result of this investment. It is estimated that at least 80% of the jobs will be available to residents of the low-income community with no educational requirements. The average wage of $14.15 will exceed the MuniStrategies target of  130% of the living wage of $10.80 in Screven County.
  
• Community: The project utilized $14,000,000 in Screven County Development Authority Industrial Revenue Development Bonds. Further the Screven County Development Authority provided a 33 acre site and has partnered with the Georgia Department of Transportation to upgrade the surrounding roads. The Screven Board of Commissioners agreed to a 5-year tax abatement for the project and waived the permitting and business licensing fees. Through the assistance of an EIP grant (and a potential grant from the Federal Economic Development Administration), the City of Sylvania provided water, sewer, and electrical infrastructure to the site.
• Workforce Development: All employees will be trained internally, and the company will hire from within (when possible) to provide employees with opportunities for advancement. The company has committed to spend $30,000 in training each year (for a total of $210,000 over the compliance period).

In The News

Business Focus – Claxton Poultry in Sylvania

Governor attends opening of Claxton Poultry Farms in Sylvania