Aaron Rubashkin

Avraham Aaron Rubashkin is the founder of Agriprocessors, a major kosher meat processing plant in Postville, Iowa.

Agriprocessors
Rubashkin opened the Postville plant in 1987, and represented a major breakthrough in mass-production of kosher meat.

Rubashkin, a Brooklyn butcher, made plans to take advantage of economic structural changes to bring mass-production and economies of scale to the kosher meat production business. Postville, a town undergoing a major employment crisis would eventually become the site of his plant. In the 20 years since its construction AgriProcessors has had a major impact on the town - with new jobs, and an influx of Jews.

Rubashkin is regarded as an innovator in the kosher slaughter industry, bringing modern industrial methods to what has historically been a small, almost boutique craft. The plant currently employs over 800 people.

The Rubashkin family opened a new processing plant in conjunction with the Oglala Lakota native-American tribe of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Gordon, Nebraska in 2006. The presence of the plant on an Indian reservation provides considerable tax breaks for Rubashkin, while the plant employs some 100 locals. Governor Dave Heineman presented a $505,000 gratuity check to Rubashkin on behalf of the city of Gordon, part of an incentive package that brought the factory to the town.

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