Daily’s Premium Meats cut the ribbon Thursday on an expanded bacon-processing facility in St. Joseph, Missouri, celebrating a plant that has literally doubled in size. Employees and city officials gathered at the site for the ceremony, marking what the company describes as a major leap in its production capacity, automation and future growth potential.
The expansion is the result of a $100 million investment, according to News-Press NOW. That figure differs from earlier project estimates: when Daily’s broke ground on the expansion in May 2025 with Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe in attendance, the company had pegged the project at $95 million, split between $40 million in construction costs and $55 million for new equipment, according to a St. Joseph economic development announcement. The facility now spans 111,000 square feet, which is double the size of the previous plant, KQ2 reports.
Tyler Shuman, Daily’s site general manager, called the milestone an official start of something new for the company and for St. Joseph. Joe Richmond, the company’s vice president and general manager, described the project as a significant investment in Daily’s future, according to the News-Press NOW account of the ceremony.
More Bacon, Plus a New Product Line
The upgraded facility is expected to add roughly 60 million pounds of annual production capacity, per the station’s report. It also gives Daily’s the ability to manufacture bacon bits at the St. Joseph site; the company’s Salt Lake City plant can make them as well.
The new line includes advanced in-line slicing technology meant to improve efficiency and boost yields, along with new belly sizing and docking systems and upgraded quality-assurance and production-monitoring tools, the same report notes. A new packaging machine can wrap and box bacon before it goes onto a pallet, part of the broader push toward automation across the plant.
Daily’s said the equipment still needs development and training with teams and vendors over the next 60 to 90 days before the line reaches full capacity, a timeline the company shared in its ribbon-cutting announcement covered by News-Press NOW.
Jobs Numbers Have Shifted Over the Project’s Life
How many jobs the expansion ultimately creates has moved around depending on when the estimate was made. The earlier groundbreaking announcement projected between 90 and 115 new production jobs with starting wages between $47,000 and $53,000, per the saintjoseph.com release. A related 2025 announcement from the city’s economic development arm put the number at about 100 new jobs and said the expansion would push St. Joseph’s share of national bacon manufacturing to 5 percent, according to Choose Saint Joseph.
By this week, the estimate had grown. KQ2 reports the expansion will add approximately 150 new jobs in St. Joseph once the facility is fully operational — notably higher than the earlier projections. Hiring had already been underway since at least March, when Daily’s said it was accepting applications for processing, packaging, maintenance, quality assurance, warehousing and frontline supervision roles, and that the production expansion was then scheduled for completion by July 1.
At the groundbreaking stage, Daily’s also said it planned to construct another production bay on the east side of the St. Joseph facility and projected the expansion would more than double the plant’s existing production capacity, according to the saintjoseph.com announcement. The company could also draw on state support: per Area Development, the project was set to benefit from Missouri’s Works program, with the possibility of additional assistance from Missouri One Start for recruitment and training.
A 200-Year-Old Name in a New Facility
Daily’s Premium Meats is jointly and equally owned by Seaboard Foods and Triumph Foods, according to Seaboard Foods. The St. Joseph site is one of three Daily’s bacon-processing facilities in the United States, alongside the Salt Lake City plant, per the KQ2 report. The company was founded in 1893 and is marking its 133rd anniversary in 2026.
Shuman also framed the expansion in terms of what it means for local workers, saying manufacturing jobs in St. Joseph offer people opportunities to grow and develop careers. Richmond, for his part, emphasized that the new facility strengthens Daily’s ability to deliver quality, food safety and operational excellence for its customers going forward.
