The troubled Iowa meatpacker Agriprocessors is set to be sold.
A court-appointed trustee for the company, which filed for bankruptcy months after a massive immigration raid last year, filed documents June 23 recommending that Agriprocessors be sold to a Canadian company owned by an observant Jew.
The newly formed company, SHF Industries, is headed by Montreal businessman Hershey Friedman, the president of Polystar Packing. A judge needs to approve the deal for the sale to go through.
Once the largest kosher meat producer in the United States, Agriprocessors has been operating at a fraction of its capacity since the May 2008 raid, which trained a national spotlight on the issue of illegal immigration and forced the Jewish community to grapple with issues relating to the ethical treatment of workers at Jewish-owned businesses.
Several company officials have faced criminal charges for their roles in employing the illegal workers and other alleged violations. — jta