Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.UNDERWOOD, Iowa — More and more of the big trucks with the red and black logos are rumbling down the streets, and people are talking.
They're wondering how many people are already working in the sprawling yellow and white building just south of town, the one that's been sitting empty for a year, since Oriental Trading moved out. They're noticing how lunchtime is already busier at the Country Store, and they're thinking some of their neighbors who make the commute to Omaha or other nearby communities might be able to work a bit closer to home.
Mostly, they're excited that another company, Link Snacks, is making an investment in the community — so excited that they're turning out by the hundreds to apply for the jobs it's bringing to Underwood.
The Minong, Wis., maker of snack meats — marketed under the "Jack Link's Beef Jerky" brand — is spending $9.4 million to open a distribution center in the long-empty building on Magnolia Road. It plans to employ about 130 workers, who will handle inbound and outbound shipments of the company's products and eventually do some packaging work.
So far, the company has hired 18 people, who are already working to get the facility ready and handle shipments that started showing up shortly after the first of the year. The company is actively working to fill out the rest of its roster, and isn't having any trouble finding candidates.
When the city hosted a welcome event and job fair for the company in early December, planners expected about 150 people to show up. They got a standing-room-only crowd of close to 500, including about 320 people who filled out job applications.
Underwood's population is 917.
"The building was so full, you'd see someone you knew you needed to say thank you to, but you couldn't get to them," City Clerk Kelly Groskurth said.
And it didn't stop there. For a few weeks, City Hall was getting four or five — sometimes seven or eight — calls a day from people looking to fill out job applications.
Some of the interest came from people who had worked in the building before, when it was a distribution facility, and later a warehouse, operated by the Omaha-based Oriental Trading Co. That company started operating in Underwood in 1992. It moved out the last of its workers about a year ago, and sold the building to Jack Link's in late 2011.
About three years ago, Oriental Trading shifted its Underwood operations back across the state line to La Vista. While some employees stayed with Oriental Trading, others looked elsewhere. In Underwood, where the largest employer is the school district, there was nothing to match the number of job opportunities that Oriental Trading had offered.
As a result, with dozens of people taking their lunch breaks and spending their work days elsewhere, Underwood businesses took a hit.
At the Friends Restaurant and Lounge, Tammi Christensen — server, cook, bartender — said the shutdown was hard to miss.
"It was pretty much a big loss for everybody," she said. "They didn't actually get rid of anybody, but they moved so far away that a lot of people felt they had to quit. People were already driving from Avoca, Shelby — far enough."
Business dropped off a bit, mostly at lunchtime.
Michelle Powell, who runs the Country Store —the only convenience store in or near downtown — said the change was clear. She was used to a steady crowd of lunch patrons, picking up slices of pizza and chicken strips, and after-work stops from people who wanted to grab a gallon of milk or a six-pack of beer on their way home. There was a noticeable drop when Oriental Trading moved, she said.
Now, that traffic is picking up again, and Powell has bigger plans.
Workers at the Link Snacks facility will get 30-minute lunch breaks. With that amount of time, she figures, many would rather get their food delivered than take a drive across town — so why not offer a delivery menu? Plus, a boost in business would be a welcome change.
"I need to do it," she said.
Up the street from Friends Restaurant, Tom Snyder, the owner of A-1 Repair, said he's been picking up business from Jack Link's and expects he'll be seeing more workers drop off their cars as the distribution facility gets up and running.
"We did before," he said.
Jamie Meadows, the facility's new distribution manager, managed the plant in the 1990s for Oriental Trading. Some of the people who are already working with him for Link Snacks were former co-workers. A few are Jack Link's employees who transferred from a distribution facility in Laurens, Iowa.
Some, like Tonya Mayer, who was unloading a truck during a recent visit to the facility, are now spared a 60-mile round-trip commute.
Mayer worked for Oriental Trading for 19 years, most of them in the building where she's returned to work for Link Snacks.
"It takes me less than five minutes to get to work," she said. "It's like coming home. It's so nice."
Meadows wasn't looking for a job, but when he heard Jack Link's was coming to Underwood, he said, he jumped at the chance to come back.
"I know from managing the facility in the '90s that the work ethic here is extremely impressive," he said.
Within a few months, he'll be running a 24/7 operation, with four shifts of workers. Trucks will haul in huge quantities of products; the facility can hold in the neighborhood of 30,000 to 40,000 pallets. A great deal of it, Meadows said, leaves on trucks bound for Walmart stores. Products that move through Underwood will be distributed across the country and in Canada.
"Overall," Meadows said, "there will be a lot of beef jerky in this building."
He said Jack Link's is committed to growing in Underwood and may add to its employee count after it hits the 130-worker mark.
John Hermeier, the company's chief financial officer, said it's a good fit because of its proximity to other Jack Link's facilities in the Midwest — and because like those places, it's a small town.
"I would say we're a small-town company, to a degree," he said. "We're a very large company, but our roots are in the upper Midwest in small towns. Our headquarters are in Minong, population 521."
The company found Underwood while searching state economic development agencies' websites, Hermeier said.
"We feel like the people (in Underwood) fit our culture very well," he said. "It meets our needs both economically and culturally."
Jack Link's also got a boost from the Iowa Economic Development Department, which provided $40,000 in direct assistance, along with tax incentives. The City of Underwood offered tax rebates on investments the company makes in the property over the next decade.
Groskurth, the city clerk, said her community is up for the challenge of supporting and sustaining a large business.
"It's a tremendous boost to our economy — I don't know if we can even realize how much yet," she said.
Contact the writer:
402-444-1543, erin.golden@owh.co
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