K&N’s Opens First Facility In America – in Fulton

by Steve Yablonski | January 3, 2014 6:27 pm

FULTON, NY – Khalil Sattar, chairman of K&N’s Foods USA, brought some delicious food to Fulton Friday afternoon. He also brought along a lot of hope for the community.

The former BirdsEye facility on Phillips Street was buzzing with activity as Sattar announced the opening of K&N’s Foods USA.

K&N’s, an international and premium brand of frozen Halal chicken products, considered to be the favorite of millions of people outside North American market.

The immediate impact of this announcement “is jobs,” Fulton Mayor Ron Woodward told Oswego County Today. “It’s putting a lot of our people back to work.”

“We hope to get the USDA’s approval within a month, month and a half. We have everything set up. All we need is their approval to start,” Sattar said. “We’ve got the boxes even printed and ready. We can’t do the final print until USDA approves.”

Although they are still a couple months away from commercial production, K&N’s employs 44 people and endeavors to create 183 jobs by the third year of its operation, Sattar said.

In his home country of Pakistan, they are approved by all the national chains such as McDonald’s and Burger King, Sattar pointed out.

“I think this is a wonderful experience,” Mayor Woodward said. “It gives us hope. Being the first city in the USA for them to break into the American market, I think, is very important. It gives us a lot of room for expansion; a lot of possibilities for the future. I think there is a lot of opportunity.”

Is this the start of something big for the city of Fulton?

“We hope so!” the mayor replied. “We hope so. The other thing, a facility this size, to get it back to work is a good thing. Look around the state, there are too many empty factories.”

Sattar thanked L. Michael Treadwell, executive director of Operation Oswego County, for facilitating their location to Fulton.

“This facility became a priority issue (after it closed). It was important to bring in another business to occupy it,” Treadwell said. “In March of 2012, we were fortunate enough to be introduced to K&N’s. They had an interest in the facility. They were also looking at other options.”

They will be manufacturing a wide range of frozen Halal value added chicken products under a brand license from K&N’s Foods Limited, Pakistan.

K&N’s has 50 years’ of poultry expertise. Sattar started the company in 1964 while still in college. His son, Adil Sattar, is the chief executive of K&N’s Foods USA.

The company makes a variety of products, including nuggets, tenders, kabobs, skinless sausages and cold cuts.

All of their products are completely free of MSG, artificial preservatives nitrates and nitrites, and trans fat. Additionally, many of its unbreaded products are also gluten free.

K&N’s held its ribbon cutting ceremony today (Jan. 3) at the plant located in Fulton. It has begun hiring and will be fully operational this year.

“Today is an exciting day for the city of Fulton. It is welcome news for our region, this city, and for Oswego County.  I want to thank the Sattar family for selecting Fulton as their first U.S. location to expand their company. I was pleased to be involved in meeting with the family when they were considering this city as a potential location and glad that out of all the places they visited, they decided to invest in our region that has a strong and skilled workforce,” Assemblyman Will Barclay said.“ I’m also grateful for all of the local people and offices who worked hard the last year to see that we could all be here today to hear this announcement, and put some of our local residents back to work. The community is grateful to call K&N’s our neighbor.”

Chickens won’t be slaughtered at the Fulton site; they will be transported from another facility.

The products will be distributed to supermarkets, club wholesale outlets, ethnic and neighborhood stores.

Source URL: https://oswegocountytoday.com/news/fulton/kns-opens-first-facility-in-america-in-fulton/

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