Iowa pork company to pay additional $118K to settle Windom slaughterhouse dispute

The Iowa company that bought a pork processing plant in a southwestern Minnesota town earlier this summer will cut another check for $118,057 to settle a dispute over erroneously calculated property taxes, according to a ruling signed by a Delaware bankruptcy judge on Tuesday.

Premium Iowa Pork, which also owns meatpacking facilities in Hospers, Iowa, and Luverne, Minn., purchased the bankrupt Windom facility for $14 million from HyLife Foods during an auction in June.

Days after the sale finalized, however, the Manitoba-based HyLife, one of Canada’s largest pork producers, discovered an accounting error by its own hired firm that left HyLife short $214,650. The company filed a motion in court this summer, claiming the erroneous deduction harmed the long list of creditors seeking money from HyLife as part of bankruptcy proceedings.

Tuesday’s agreement, approved by U.S. District Judge Thomas Horan, states Premium Iowa — who had rejected repayment in emails, noting the sale price was final — will effectively pay 55% of the disputed amount.

In a statement, Premium Iowa said the error was contained in closing statements and the company has agreed to pay the additional funds to finish acquisition of the Windom plant.

“We are glad to be closing this chapter of the process and to continue focusing on future operations in Windom,” said Dan Paquin, Premium Iowa’s president.

The fate of the pork plant’s reopening schedule is not yet public, though Paquin stated the company plans to share more about the facility “in the coming weeks.” At the plant’s height, the factory processed roughly 6,000 hogs a day, employing 1,000 people in a town of 5,000 people, and generating a boost in enrollment to the local school system in and around Windom.

On Monday, during a roundtable with U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at The Good Acre, in Falcon Heights, Windom Mayor Dominic Jones described the whiplash felt in the community after HyLife announced closure plans earlier this year.

“We were a really growing community,” Jones told the Secretary. “When that news hit our community. We were really struck.”

Jones thanked elected representatives — of both parties — in the state legislature and governor’s office for securing $14 million for Windom.

Those monies included $10 million to shore-up an unfinished housing complex, $2 million to help pay off a wastewater treatment plant undertaken with HyLife’s anticipated contribution, $1 million for job recruitment, and $1 million to the school system to compensate for lost enrollment from departing workers and their families.

In recent days, a new sign hangs outside the shuttered plant in northeastern Windom off Highway 60 announcing the new owner, Premium Iowa Pork.