Doug,
Hormel acquired the Dubuque Label and Rochelle Facility which is operated as
Rochelle Foods when they bought what was left of Dubuque Packing. They did
not acquire the former home facility in Dubuque. Hormel then manufactured
items under the Dubuque label at many of their facilities including Austin MN.
and Osceola (IA) Foods as well as Rochelle. Rochelle Foods is located on he
southeast side of Rochelle. Today the plant is a specialized further
processing facility with no slaughter. Ironically, Hormel opened a brand new
Grocery Products Plant in Dubuque in 2009.
Mike Moore
Albert Lea, MN..
----- Original Message -----
From: Douglas Harding
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2011 9:35 AM
Subject: [CBQ] Re: Rochelle Meat packing Plant
Let me offer some information.
Rich Rapido is indeed offering the GATC wood meat reefer. Should be
available this summer. I saw and held an early test sample of the car about
10 days. Rapido just updated their website yesterday with a listing of paint
schemes they plan to offer. The Swift scheme, ie the bright red, was first
used in 1950. Wood meat reefers ran into the 60's. Meat packers were slow to
switch to steel reefers and to 40' cars. If you are modeling the 50's this
car will be ideal.
The current Rochelle Foods meat packing plant is indeed owned by Hormel, who
acquired it in 1990's. It looks like the plant was owned by FDL (Farmland?),
a subsidiary of Smithfield at the time Hormel acquired it. Dubuque Packing
apparently owned the plant in the 1981, and moved jobs from Dubuque to
Rochelle, they shut down a year later, 1982? I know Farmland acquired
Dubuque sometime in the 80's, so much have acquired the Rochelle plant at
the same time. Labor issues, etc. caused Farmland to sell. I have not been
able to trace the history back any further. It does not show up in any
documents I have about swift. If Leo is correct and it was built in ca 1948,
that date is after my Swift documents were published. I have found evidence
that Swift was in Rochelle.
IBP did not get started until 1958/9, in South Sioux City NE. They brought
about big changes in the meat packing industry, which lead to many old
plants closing in the 70's and many consolidations, mergers and buyouts of
plants and companies in the 70's & 80's.
Leo great information about switching the plant. If you have any more to
offer about switching meat packing plants, I would love to hear it.
Doug Harding
www.iowacentralrr.org
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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