CAMANCHE, Iowa – A meat processing plant in this community that closed its doors last year is now up for auction.
Naeve Family Beef, which opened for business in 2022 at 1902 Seventh St., Camanche, closed in August of 2023. At the time of its closing, the business owner said Naeve Family Beef was going through a “transition” and planned to reopen at a later date.
That reopening – at least under the Naeve Family Beef name – appears unlikely with the property being listed for auction earlier this week with the Peoples Company. Potential buyers must submit bids for the property before 5 p.m. Wednesday, May 22, for a sealed bid sale. (More information on the auction and the property can be found here.) The auction date is listed as May 22.
The leader of an area business advocate group — Grow Clinton — said he hopes the auction will offer a new start for the closed company.
“Often, in business, we have to make hard choices. I’m confident that closing the Naeve Family Beef facility in Camanche was difficult for the entire Neave family. However, we find ourselves in a position of opportunity. The nearly 26,000-square-foot facility has been listed for auction and is well-positioned to offer new ownership a state-of-the-art operation. Sited on 12.5 acres, there is plenty of room for expansion, with all utilities in place. Working with Peoples Company, we have identified several potential buyers. We hope the facility will again serve as an employer of high-quality jobs in the Greater Clinton Region,” said Andy Sokolovich, president and CEO of Grow Clinton, in an emailed statement to the QCBJ on Wednesday.
Property details on the auction website include:
- About 25,683 square feet of space.
- When it was operational, 40 to 45 head of cattle were processed at the facility daily. The facility is designed to easily expand to 150 head per day on a single shift or 300 head per day on two shifts.
- The plant has electricity through MidAmerican and is connected to all city utilities, with a modern wastewater system.
- The southernmost portion of the plant contains a number of offices with one large boardroom, two separate locker rooms, and a large eating area that can also serve for presentations to large groups.
- There are over 42,300 square feet of concrete parking around the facility.
- The livestock unloading area, located on the north side, consists of two chutes to accommodate both semis or fifth-wheel/bumper hitch trailers by various sized livestock producers.
- There is retail space on the west side of the plant.
- There is a 10-year property tax abatement available from the City of Camanche.
When the facility closed last year, it had about 50 employees. At the time, company officials put this message on Naeve Family Beef’s Facebook page: “We regret to inform you that our plant will be temporarily ceasing operations effective immediately. Although we continue to work towards a solution to continue operations, we are unable to keep processing at the facility at this time.”
The company’s Facebook page and business website were still viewable as of Tuesday, April 9. However, they were both offline as of Wednesday morning, April 10.
When the beef processing facility opened in the spring of 2022, Andrew Naeve, company president and third generation farmer, said this about the new business: “This has always been a dream of our family; to create this business.”
A big part of that dream was for the Naeve family to create its own brand of beef through the new processing facility. The new plant was used primarily to process Angus cattle for sale to local and regional customers.
The Naeve family is a six-generation farm family that raises cattle, grows crops and operates a trucking company based in nearby Andover, Iowa. There are three generations now working on the family farm. They include: Allan Naeve; his son, Ray Naeve; and grandsons, Andrew and Adam Naeve.
