Jennings Premium Meats in New Franklin broke ground last week on a 4,800 square-foot expansion that will increase the company’s capacity for manufacturing snack sticks. The project is expected to be completed by July 1.

Jennings’ most recent expansion took place in 2021 and involved increasing its packaging and further processing capacity. This current expansion will bring the company’s total footprint to approximately 45,000 square feet, including a separate warehouse that is used for dry goods and refrigerated storage. The family-owned business closed down its retail meat counter in January 2022 to focus solely on manufacturing.

Jason Jennings, third-generation owner/operator, says that the company’s volume has increased by about 60% within the last year. The $2M investment is partially funded by a grant from Missouri Agricultural and Small Business Development Authority through the Show-Me Entrepreneurial Grants for Agriculture (SEGA) program.

 “This expansion is the next step to build our capacity and continue to grow the company,” he says.

Jennings said the expansion will  meet several needs, including adding several smokehouses to increase the company’s cooking capacity, expanding  a locker room to improve workplace amenities for the company’s 35 employees, and  expanding the space used for cutting and prepping snack sticks prior to packaging.

Jennings Premium Meats was founded in New Franklin in 1954 by Oscar “Pop” Jennings and his brother-in-law, Orville Struchtemeyer. The company expanded into retail in the 1960s to produce a variety of award-winning hams, bacon, jerky and sausages. Jennings Premium Meats still operates on the site of the original butcher shop in downtown New Franklin and focuses on manufacturing Pop’s Snack Sticks and being a premier private label meat manufacturer. 

Jason Jennings entered the business in 1988. In 2011, he was the recipient of the prestigious Richard L. Knowlton Innovation Award, given each year by Meatingplace magazine to a meat processor with outstanding service to the trade business.