Decrease in poultry exports impacts State Port

A major decline in chicken exports does not bode well for the Mississippi port’s tentative plans to resume a pre-Katrina business that created hundreds of jobs.

The port had planned to rebuild its freezer for chicken shipments on the West Pier, but that was before a new strategic plan reserved the space for an elevated containerized cargo operation. The port’s executive director, Don Allee, tells The Sun Herald a chicken freezer, with the attendant trucks and traffic, would be unsuitable on a mechanized container cargo pier.

Instead, he says, the port has considered turning a building on the East Pier into a temperature-controlled storage space for chicken and other perishables.