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Oct 15, 2024

United Petfood officials to discuss future at 1st District neighborhood meeting

MISHAWAKA — New owners of the city's pet food production plant at 1121 W. 11th St. will discuss the company's future plans at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17 at the monthly neighborhood meeting of city

MISHAWAKA — New owners of the city's pet food production plant at 1121 W. 11th St. will discuss the company's future plans at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17 at the monthly neighborhood meeting of city council member Dale “Woody” Emmons, D-1st, at St. Bavo Parish at 7th and West streets. The public is welcome.

Emmons said on Monday that United Petfood officials are planning to speak this Thursday and at the November meeting about the plant's plans. The second meeting is at 7 p.m. Nov. 21, also at St. Bavo Parish.

Emmons said the group wants to let residents know what it will continue to do about odors that come from the food production process.

United Petfood announced the purchase in June. It is the company's first manufacturing plant in the United States.

United Petfood operates plants in Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Romania and Turkey. It also has five production facilities in France, three in Poland, three in the United Kingdom and six in the Netherlands, being active in more than 95 countries worldwide.

The former owner of the Mishawaka pet food plant, Wellness Pet, had been at odds with residents over the odors coming from the plant during processing operations there.

For years, people living downwind from the plant have had to deal with intermittent strong odors that result from the untreated steam from the food processing.

In earlier Tribune stories, the company had reportedly installed odor abatement systems that were found not to be effective.

Wellness Pet in 2019 announced a newer technology that was later installed at the plant to help mitigate the smells when pet food was being manufactured. The work was part of other plant improvements the company proposed for the site.

But Wellness Pet said in 2022 that some of the plant improvement had been placed on hold, and it later was urged to install the odor abatement system despite the delayed improvement plans.

The Common Council, seeing that Wellness Pet's tax abatement application calling for the odor and other plant improvements had not been completely realized, voted in 2023 to rescind tax abatements for the failure to follow through on the plant expansion plan it had proposed.

The following year, the plant was purchased by United Petfood.

Email Tribune staff writer Greg Swiercz at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: New Mishawaka pet food plant owners to discuss odor, future goals