'We did it!': Sustainable Beef cuts North Platte ribbon

Four years and six days after North Platte’s quest to build a beef plant went public, more than 1,000 people cheered Gary Person onto the stage inside the all-but-finished product. “We did it!” the North Platte Area Chamber & Development Corp. president and CEO exclaimed, thrusting his hands into the air as Monday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony inside Sustainable Beef LLC reached its peak.

An exultant Gary Person, president and CEO of the North Platte Area Chamber & Development Corp., thrusts his hands in the air Monday in celebration of the successful five-year quest to land and build Sustainable Beef LLC. “This is what North Platte does to bring in industry.



This is what Nebraska does,” Person added. “This dream, this journey, this destiny could not fail.” A couple of minutes later, Sustainable Beef CEO David Briggs cut a ceremonial ribbon and accepted a chamber “first dollar of profit” plaque as plant organizers and their families gathered around him.

Lincoln County, city and state elected officials, including three Nebraska members of Congress, joined many local residents in celebrating the realization of North Platte’s largest economic project since the Walmart Distribution Center’s 2003 completion. The $325 million-plus, 560,000-square-foot meatpacking plant is expected to welcome its first 140 production line workers in May and its first cattle once they’re trained, Briggs said before the event. When both hiring and production reach capacity, he said, some 850 people will be employed in processing 1,500 head of western Nebraska cattle a day.

About 47 people were on the payroll as of Monday’s ribbon-cutting, which took place in the cavernous “sales cooler” room where some 2,000 chilled cattle carcasses eventually will hang awaiting fabrication into beef cuts for shipment. Person and Briggs, two of the event’s 10 VIP speakers, also fronted North Platte’s public announcement of the Sustainable Beef project at the Prairie Arts Center on March 18, 2021. That followed organizers’ first meeting with North Platte leaders by seven months and the initial overseas conversation between Nebraskans that sparked the venture by 18 months.

North Platte rancher and Sustainable Beef LLC board member Trey Wasserburger speaks Monday to those gathered at a ribbon cutting to celebrate the plant’s upcoming opening. Wasserburger is surrounded by his wife, Dayna, and their children, Westyn, 9; Gentry, 7; Gwyn, 6; and Wacey, 4. U.

S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, then leading a trade mission to Vietnam as governor, recalled how McPherson County rancher Rusty Kemp shared his concern about cattle producers’ ability to make money with four major meatpackers dominating the U.

S. market. “One of the things I suggested was, ‘Look, why don’t you go out and raise your own?’” Ricketts said.

“And Rusty said, ‘You know what, Governor? I am going to go out and do my own.’ That is the kind of spirit that has made this state and country great.” Briggs, then and now also the CEO of the Alliance-based WESTCO agricultural cooperative, joined Kemp in the effort nearly a year later along with cattle producers Kirk Olson of Hershey, Pete Lapaseotes of Bridgeport and Bob Maxwell of Ainsworth.

Sustainable Beef LLC CEO David Briggs speaks to the more than 1,000 people gathered for Monday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony. It took place in the brand-new meatpacking plant’s “sales cooler” room where some 2,000 chilled cattle carcasses will hang awaiting fabrication for shipment. North Platte rancher Trey Wasserburger, Olson’s son-in-law, soon joined the effort along with Briggs’ son Tyler, Dallas-area financier and legendary Grant basketball star Bill Jackman and current Sustainable Beef Chief Operating Officer Bill Rupp.

“Back when we were contemplating building this plant, there were a lot of folks looking at building plants in a lot of places,” Rupp told the audience. “And I think this is about the only one that’s gotten to this stage.” He also thanked Schmeeckle Bros.

of Fort Morgan, Colorado, the project’s main contractor. “As far as beef plants go, this place is fantastic.” “I also want to thank every single wife of the founders” of the project, said Wasserburger, who was accompanied onto the stage by his wife, Dayna, and their children Westyn, 9; Gentry, 7; Gwyn, 6; and Wacey, 4.

“We’ve taken so much time away from all of them.” Wasserburger and several other speakers thanked Walmart for its 2022 commitment to complete the plant’s U.S.

Farm Credit System financing as a minority owner and take a majority of its eventual beef production. Tyler Lehr, a Walmart senior vice president and Sustainable Beef board member, recounted how plant organizers told he and other leaders of the retail giant in December 2021 of their vision to help ranchers and “be about family” while producing high-quality, reasonably priced Black Angus beef. When they left that meeting, “we were committed at Walmart to see and do whatever it was we could do to help bring this vision to life,” Lehr said.

During his brief remarks, Briggs also recounted the initial fivesome’s first meeting on Aug. 19, 2020, with North Platte bankers Greg Wilke and David Gale at the latter’s Sandhills State Bank. A couple of hours later, they met with Person, chamber board member Brandon Jones, then-City Administrator Matthew Kibbon — who returned to North Platte for Monday’s event — and City Engineer Brent Burklund.

The city leaders brought commitment and ideas with them. “I thought this was going to be a glad-handing session,” Briggs said. “Boy, was I wrong.

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“Never underestimate the power of a single spark. Rusty, thank you for providing that spark to our group. And, Gary, thank you for fanning the flames.

” The 500 people in chairs gave Briggs a standing ovation as he left the stage, repeating the salute for Person as he mounted it a few minutes later. Gov. Jim Pillen spoke between the two, paying tribute to Sustainable Beef’s organizers as having “risked a lifetime of work to make this happen.

” “Us lifetimers in ag — we’ve been price-takers for way, way too long,” the Pillen Family Farms leader and pork producer said. Now “we can create the value here. It will change the face of agriculture for years to come.

” Gov. Jim Pillen, state Sen. Mike Jacobson of North Platte and U.

S. Sens. Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts listen during a ribbon cutting ceremony Monday for Sustainable Beef LLC in North Platte.

North Platte Mayor Brandon Kelliher, who emceed Monday’s ribbon-cutting, welcomed a procession of speakers who said Sustainable Beef and North Platte have captured the nation’s attention by pursuing and welcoming a state-of-the-art beef plant when others wouldn’t. “Sustainable Beef is primed to create lasting change at this facility, and it will usher in a new era for Nebraska’s ranchers,” said U.S.

Sen. Deb Fischer, part of a longtime ranching family near Valentine. “It’s great to have a crowd like this for a moment like this, to see the community support for this monumental project that speaks well to what Nebraska and especially the 3rd District is all about,” added Rep.

Adrian Smith of Gering. State Sen. Mike Jacobson of North Platte recalled his own first meeting with beef-plant organizers at his NebraskaLand Bank office in November 2020, two years before he was appointed to the Legislature.

When they told him they wanted to buy and fill in a retired city sewer lagoon for their site, “I said, ‘So, what, you’re going to fill in the cell?’” he said. “That’s like taking a teaspoon to fill a bathtub. I’m sure when the first several (dirt) loads went in, they couldn’t even see what they had done.

” Person, saying chamber leaders “felt we had a good game plan” when Sustainable Beef came calling, thanked local, state and federal leaders who “embraced this project with 100% commitment.” Monday’s event, he said, took place “1,678 days, one hour and 14 minutes” after that first August 2020 conversation with beef-plant organizers. It also came five months shy of 10 years since Person joined the North Platte chamber after helping build Cabela’s Inc.

into a major national outdoor retailer as economic development director and city manager in his native Sidney. “To this team, thank you for beginning the process, meeting the challenges and now achieving a milestone achieved across America,” he said. We're always interested in hearing about news in our community.

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