RANTOUL, Ill. (AP) -- Almost 2,000 people have applied for what will be about 150 jobs at an eastern Illinois pork processing plant expected to reopen this spring.
James Jendruczek is the president of J&A Investors. The firm owns a company called Trim-Rite Foods Inc. that will operate the plant in Rantoul. That's about 18 miles north of Champaign.
Jendruczek told The News-Gazette in Champaign that hundreds of the applicants showed up last week in below-zero weather.
The plant has been closed since January 2009, just before the previous owner, Meadowbrook Farms of Belleville, filed for bankruptcy protection. It once employed 600 people.
He said the plant could be open by late March but said that date could change depending on how quickly equipment arrives.