Bladen County farm products go worldwide, but none more obvious than pork products. Bladen and surrounding counties provide the hogs, Smithfield Foods process and package pork products and Carolina Cold Storage freezes and sends them to every corner of the world.
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Carolina Cold Storage is located next door to Smithfield Foods near Tar Heel. Fresh pork products are delivered to Carolina Cold Storage where many are placed in a ‘blast freezer” where temps are in the minus 30 degree range. Other work areas of the plant have temps ranging from the low 30’s to near zero.
About 150 employees are employed at the local industry. Pork products are shipped around the world 24/7. The volume of products sent out daily will range from 1 million to 1.8 million pounds of pork every day.
Dusty Merriman and Terrel Dial, supervisors in the cold storage facility, provided a walk-thru for a small, interested group, recently.
“Every part of the pork is used,” according to the spokesmen, “from snouts to the tail, nothing is wasted.” All are labeled and inspected by government inspectors on a daily basis. The guides said over 60% of all products are sent to foreign countries, with China and Japan being among the biggest users of the local products.
Merriman said 4 ports are used to send the pork to Europe, Asia and other foreign locations. The products are all packaged locally, labeled and delivered to the final users. Products from Tar Heel, Clinton and Richmond Va are all shipped out of the Tar Heel cold storage plant.
Merriman said the majority of employees at the Tar Heel industry were from Bladen, Robeson and Cumberland counties.
The hog industry is a major source of income for many Bladen County farmer/business owners.
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