Facility Design A New Bird on the Block

By: Jacob Mayer, P.E. Settje Agri-Services & Engineering, Inc.

For the past year, Settje Agri-Services has been working as a subcontractor for QC Supply to help them build one of the largest greenfield projects in Nebraska history - and as you may have guessed from my title, it involves a species not as common to the area as cattle and hogs. In 2016, Costco (the members-only wholesale retailer) collaborated with poultry experts to create Lincoln Premium Poultry, a Nebraska company, with the goal to supply a portion of their North American stores with the birds for their readyto-eat rotisserie chickens and other chicken products. We have been helping with the construction of the barns for the grower network that will make it possible.

Facts & Figures

The 400,000 square foot processing facility, hatchery, and the feed mill are being built on a 400+ acre site in Fremont, Nebraska, at the cost of nearly $400 million. When completed (late summer 2019), the complex will employ around 1,000 people. The feed mill will utilize over 350,000 bushels of corn every week and over 3,000 pounds of soybean meal. At full production, the processing facility will process around 2 million birds per week.

The processing facility will be supported by over 100 contracted growers within an approximate 60-mile radius from Fremont. Each farmer will build at least four chicken houses to be a part of the project. There will be a total of 432 broiler houses, 16 hen houses, and 24 pullet houses for this project. Each broiler house will become home to approximately 43,000 day-old chicks and after 42 to 44 days, Lincoln Premium Poultry will gather the 6-lb. birds to be processed. Each four-house site represents about a $2 million investment by the grower, but after expenses are paid, growers are expected to earn approximately $95,000 per year, not including the value of the poultry litter, which represents around $30,000-$40,000 in fertilizer value.

Our Role

Under the direction of QC Supply, Settje Agri-Services is responsible for the civil site development for each chicken farm. This work involves three steps:

1. Design

2. Cost Estimation

3. Construction

The design phase requires a ground survey using Trimble GPS mapping, LiDar (a method of aerial surveying using laser light), or both. We use the topographic information from each site to create an excavation model and plan. This plan provides a visualization of the dirt movement required to create the building pads for the chicken houses. We are also doing some basic soil testing to ensure we provide a quality product during the construction.

Once we have quantified the materials needed to create the site (cubic yards (CY) of soil to move, diameter and length of stormwater culverts, and tons of limestone aggregate to build the access roads), QC Supply can convert our quantities into dollar values for their construction contracts with the growers. As the characteristics of each site can be quite different, this is the most variable cost in their bud- gets. We have worked on sites that required as little as 7,500 CY of excavation to some in excess of 100,000 CY.

Once the contract is signed and the financing is secured, sites are plugged into a construction schedule. Our team of site superintendents coordinate the dirt work, underground plumbing related to stormwater routing, and construction of access and interior roads. When we finish and turn the site over to QC Supply, it is time to pour footings and bring in the framers.

Things to Think About

A project of this magnitude requires superior communication. Essentially, we are working on 100 small projects and as of today, they range in completion from just beginning inquiring conversations with QC Supply and no particular site identified to construction has been completed. Managing our internal communication along with constant updates and changes with our client – QC Supply, the individual growers, and the various contractors – has been and will continue to be challenging, but we have put together an excellent team and we will continue to move forward.

This project represents approximately 1% of Nebraska’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Let that sink in for a minute. People can say what they want about Costco, or chickens, or even agriculture, but at a time where main street in rural America doesn’t always look as vibrant as it once did, who else is making that kind of investment? Lincoln Premium Poultry chose the area because of four important factors: availability of feed, availability of water, availability of workforce, but most importantly, interested farmers who were willing to consider raising chickens.

For several of the farmers I have had the chance to work with, this project has provided them or their spouse with an opportunity to farm full-time and quit a job in town or to bring a son or daughter back to the family farm. Most of them are strictly grain farmers and this project offered a chance to diversify their operation and positively impact their cash-flow. Nothing is more gratifying for me than to help a small agricultural business find a solution that enables them to grow in a manner that is environmentally conscious and economically viable. What started as a big dream by a big company has turned into a dream come true for farmers in Nebraska and Iowa. Until next time, God Bless.