CHARLES CITY, Iowa – Simply Essentials LLC has acquired the Cedar River Poultry plant in Charles City and plans to reopen of the facility by the fall. Prairie’s Best was named the local grower partner.

The company plans to spend more than $30 million to reopen the plant, which will feature air-chilled processing technology that chills the chicken throughout processing instead of using a bath of chlorine water.

“Simply Essentials is building a facility with unparalleled levels of technology, efficiency, sustainability, safety and animal welfare,” said Dennis Krause, CEO of Simply Essentials. “This will result in a better tasting, healthier end product for sure, but the plant is being designed to be safer for plant workers and will require far fewer natural resources to run the plant because of its unique processing design.

“Our Charles City facility will be the industry leader for chicken produced to meet consumer desires for a healthier raised and better tasting product,” Krause added. “We are excited about this product expansion and we intend to be a solid corporate citizen to the city of Charles City and the surrounding communities.”

Simply Essentials is a provider of meat, poultry and dairy products sourced from animals fed a proprietary USDA Process Verified flax seed diet, which the company says naturally raises the level of Omega-3 fatty acids in the protein by up to 400 percent while lowering cholesterol by up to 40 percent.