Workers and community dismayed as Windom pork plant is poised to shutter

Serge Etse arrived from the West African nation of Togo nearly two years ago. Equipped with a master's degree in accounting and business management, Etse has worked on the slaughter floor of HyLife in Windom, Minn., earning money while his family is back home.

"I'm killing hogs for the moment with my master's degree," Etse said on Wednesday.

On Monday, HyLife — a Manitoba-based pork processor — announced its plan to shutter the plant and lay off all 1,000-plus employees, including Etse.

"It's very horrible, horrible," said Etse, who lives in Windom and is one of many immigrants working at the plant. He said Windom's other big employer is Toro, but they're not hiring. "It's not good. We don't know exactly what to do."

The news this week from HyLife undercuts the boom-and-bust cycle of meat processing that the southwestern Minnesota community of 4,300 people has experienced before. In 2015, the plant — then a beef processor — closed, losing 300 jobs.

Months later, in the spring of 2016, Mankato businessman Glen Taylor led a group of investors who converted the facility for processing pork. In 2020, HyLife, in partnership with Taylor, purchased a 75% ownership stake in the plant, powering new expansion. Taylor, who separately owns the Star Tribune, sold the last of his share in the Windom facility earlier this year.

In a letter alerting the Minnesota Department of Employment & Economic Development of the impending layoffs, HyLife leaders said they've been desperately searching for additional capital or a potential buyer to avoid closure. So far, no eligible suitors have surfaced.

"This isn't the first time that the plant has been sold," Emily Cenzano, executive director for the Windom Area Chamber of Commerce, said. "It used to be beef, now it's pork. Our community is still standing. We'll band together and get through it."

Many in town hope a new buyer steps forward. The plant annually buys more than 1.2 million hogs for processing from regional farmers. While the hog industry is in a period of downturn, livestock commodities are cyclical.

Sen. Bill Weber, R-Luverne, served as mayor when that town's beef plant closed in the late 1990s and called this week's news a "pretty substantial" loss. He toured the pork plant last summer and saw "no indications" of trouble on the horizon.

A workforce housing complex is under construction in Windom aimed at increasing affordable housing options, which Weber said is "a challenge for any rural community these days." He said HyLife was busing workers into town from nearby communities.

"That housing [project] probably would not have been built to the size that it is if this [closure] was a possibility coming up," he said.

The company counts workers from Central America, the Philippines and West Africa, said the Rev. Pratap R. Salibindla, a local parish priest. Many workers, including guest workers, commute to Windom from Worthington and Mankato, where many are housed in a hotel.

"There's a hotel in Windom; the guest workers stay there," said Jose Lamas, who works for the University of Minnesota Extension in nearby Nobles County. "Also, they have workers from Mankato. They call it the HyLife [hotel]."

Lamas used to clean at the beef plant predecessor. He visited the cafeteria last fall and remarked on how the workforce was visibly larger, squeezed in tightly at lunch tables.

By hog slaughterhouse standards, Windom's plant — processing some 5,000 hogs a day — is small-to-medium, compared with the Smithfield facility in Sioux Falls, which processes 20,000 head a day.

The plant largely avoided major COVID-19 outbreaks in the pandemic's early days, but slaughterhouse work is still dangerous in other ways. A worker was killed in 2021 while walking at night to her car in the parking lot after being struck by a vehicle. In a statement to the Star Tribune, the company called the event a "tragedy" that prompted an internal investigation.

On Wednesday, city, state and company officials met to formulate the next steps. For the moment, May 31 is the final day of operations. While larger hog facilities — in Sioux Falls and Worthington — may offer work, they may not have capacity to buy hogs bound for Windom.

After meeting with HyLife officials, Minnesota Department of Agriculture Commissioner Thom Petersen said overall hog industry trends — including rising costs of hog feed and a weakening dollar in trading partners, such as Japan — harmed the operation.

"Farmers are saying they're losing money on every hog that's going out right now," Petersen said.

But the commissioner described the plant as "attractive," noting recent renovations and cleanliness.

"There are interested buyers," said Petersen, declining to reveal any names of potential partners. "It would be more of a company-type situation rather than farmers [pooling together] would be my sense."

Back in Windom, Etse — who makes $19 an hour on the kill floor — still scratches his head about the rationale from the company for the closure.

"They told us they can't pay us, I guess," Etse said. "It's very bad."