Epstein's Top 100 Projects: #21: Prestage Foods of Iowa

Coming in at #21 in our Centennial Year Celebration of our Top 100 Projects is the award-winning Prestage Foods of Iowa pork processing plant in Eagle Grove, Iowa. Epstein provided DesignBuild services for this 600,000 square foot facility that was completed in 2018 and was designed to process approximately 600 million pounds of pork annually.

The Prestage facility includes some of the highest level of architectural design and finishes in the food industry for a processing plant.

The exterior design of the main façade and office is very linear and emphasizes horizontal lines to reflect the open farmland on which it sits. The interior design integrates the Prestage company color scheme as well as being open and reflecting the openness and lightness of the plant beyond.

In addition to the large receiving, process, distribution spaces, the Prestage Foods facility includes an employee welfare space that has a refined architectural aesthetic. These spaces include a stunning two-story lobby, offices, workstations, conference rooms, training centers, locker rooms and a spacious cafeteria featuring ample natural light.

Epstein’s engineers designed numerous features for this facility which will help benefit the environment. These design items include the aforementioned on-site rendering facility which will process inedible portions into value added non-edible products. An added benefit of onsite rendering is that it reduces the number of over the road trucks coming in and out of the Prestage facility.

In addition, scrubbers were designed for all the exhaust vents in the rendering facility which will help to eliminate odors. Another odor fighting design element includes completely covering waste water lagoons to eliminate fumes and also to allow for the capture of methane generated during the treatment process. The methane is then used in the Prestage facility boilers to lessen the natural gas requirements.

The Prestage facility also features temperature control throughout the process areas to heighten food safety and quality as well as the potential use of advanced water treatment to allow the recycling of water to wash livestock pens and livestock trailers reducing the water requirements of the plant.

Stormwater runoff is being collected into a normally dry detention basin in the southwestern area of the site and released so as not to exceed the pre-developed rate of runoff.

Lastly, Prestage has won a number of design awards including being named a Fabulous Food Plant by Food Engineering Magazine and as the Manufacturing Plant of the Year by ENR Midwest.