Expansion in Noxubee
Two businesses break ground on multi-million dollar expansions
Superior Catfish Products broke ground Sept. 17 on the $17 million expansion that will create 25 new jobs and 50 to 60 construction jobs.
The plant serves 65 farmers in the area who supplement their income by farming catfish in addition to cotton, corn and soybeans. The expansion will add a new production facility and turn the current one into dry storage space, bringing the total square footage of the plant close to 74,000, almost double the existing amount, general manager Fred Johnson said. It should be finished and in operation by January 2021.
“I get a bigger satisfaction out of an announcement like this in rural Mississippi than I do with the bigger announcements,” Mickey Milligan, chief economic development officer for the Mississippi Development Authority, told the small crowd at the groundbreaking ceremony. “This is very meaningful to Macon and Noxubee County.”
Johnson said to his knowledge, there have been no other recent projects in the county that will create as many jobs as this one will.
The plant has been in Macon since the late 1970s, and a group of local catfish farmers bought the plant in 1994 and made it a co-op, Johnson said. It is currently producing at maximum capacity and is expected to produce 20 million pounds of catfish this year. Production should increase 20 to 25 percent after the expansion, Superior Catfish board president Phillip Giesbrecht said.
The nearest catfish processing plants outside Noxubee County are in the Delta region and Louisiana. Having a nearby outlet keeps the local catfish farming industry thriving, Johnson said.
Bridge replacement
The replacement of three bridges on Jack Spann Road in the southeast part of the county will also benefit the local agriculture industry, Noxubee County Board of Supervisors President Eddie Coleman said.
“They’ll be able to haul catfish, corn, beans and cotton through there, (and right now) they’ve been having to go around another way instead of coming down that road,” he said.
Laurel-based Tanner Construction received the contract for the Jack Spann Road project in April. The three bridges were closed due to safety concerns, and the new ones will have the capacity to hold 80,000 pounds, County Engineer Steve Miller said.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation previously allocated almost $2.9 million of its emergency road and bridge repair program to Noxubee County — $2.15 million for Jack Spann Road and $725,650 to replace a bridge on Butler Road. The latter is still in the preliminary design stage and no contract has been awarded yet, Miller said.
Growth north and south of Macon
The Oakwood Manor Assisted Living retirement community in Brooksville will have seven new suites and a conference space by June or July of next year, administrator Aaron Koehn said. The project costs about $1.3 million.
The building already has 24 suites, but the project was a response to a demand for more, and all seven new rooms are already taken, Koehn said.
Additionally, Shuqualak Lumber Company in southern Noxubee County invested about $6 million in new equipment for its sawmill in an effort to stay competitive with other sawmills in Mississippi and Alabama, vice president Charlie Thomas said.
The new lumber sorter, carriage system and curve saw profiler will bolster the sawmill’s hourly production from an average of 49,000 to about 65,000 feet of logs per hour, increasing annual production from 125 million to 150 million feet, Thomas said.
The company is also looking into a project that could create up to 20 new jobs, he said.
“Being in a poor rural neighborhood, we’re one of the largest employers here and we’re continuously looking at ways to grow,” Thomas said.
Story by Tess Vrbin
Opening and Oakwood photos by Deanna Robinson
Catfish Photos by Jennifer Mosbrucker
