Triumph Foods announced this week plans for a 12,000 sq. ft. expansion to its pork processing facility in St. Joseph, Mo.

The project includes robotic palletization technology to increase the speed of outbound shipping and reduce manual handling of finished products, along with additional value-added product storage, allowing the company’s strategic partner, Seaboard Foods, to expand its marketing and selling of value-added product to domestic retail and foodservice customers. Fresh pork processed by the St. Joseph plant is marketed and sold under the PrairieFresh Premium Pork brand.

“This project is representative of the company’s continued commitment to implement innovative solutions aimed at improving customer service, upgrading ergonomics and enhancing our capability to the produce and distribute new products to the market,” chief executive officer Mark Campbell said.

Epstein, a full-service architecture, engineering and construction firm, out of Chicago, Ill., will be handling the design and construction management of the expansion, with an expected completion in spring 2018.

Triumph employs more than 2,800 workers and produces more than 1.5 billion lb. of pork annually. The company and Seaboard Foods recently began operations at their joint venture pork processing plant, Seaboard Triumph Foods, after two years of construction.