The last big update (Version 10.0) to Valley Mills Drive in Waco stripped out a number of entries that weren't on Valley Mills Drive (they were sort of on the road, but it was a different part of the road that wasn't covered) and today one of them is returning (and in true Numbered Exits fashion, expanded).
Today we talk turkey with the initial facility built in 1965 at what was originally 3130 Gholson Road (later 2510 East Lake Shore Drive) by Plantation Foods, a Waco-based turkey processor that was designed to process 750,000 turkeys a year with 150 employees. Over time, Plantation Foods grew, opening a second plant for "prepared food products" to the west (at what is now 2500 E. Lake Shore Drive) sometime in the 1980s. By 1985 it was an $80 million company that made a variety of products, from prepared lunch meat to whole turkeys for the holidays. From a 1989 recall notice, they had also produced under other brand names, with the turkey franks going as "Plantation Turkey Franks", "Nifda Turkey Franks", "Code Turkey Franks", and "Nugget Turkey Franks".
Plantation Foods was gobbled up by Cargill in 1998, at which point Plantation Foods employed 1,850 and were doing 2 million turkeys a year. This ruffled some feathers in the Waco area as Plantation Foods was local for years and affected local businesses that had contracts with Plantation Foods. In 1999, Cargill downscaled the plant by selling the newer facility (at 2500 E. Lake Shore) to Pilgrim's Pride, and that's how things are still today. (Okay, enough with the puns).
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