Pilgrim's to Invest $75 Million in Its Ellijay Chicken Plant, Boosting One of Gilmer County's Biggest Employers

Pilgrim's will invest roughly $75 million to expand and modernize its poultry processing plant in Ellijay, the company announced June 12 — a major commitment to one of Gilmer County's largest employers and the working families who depend on it.

The money will go into the existing Ellijay facility rather than a new site, which the company framed as a long-term bet on the plant and its team. According to the announcement, the upgrade will increase harvesting and portioning capacity and let the plant produce a broader mix of higher-value, boneless chicken products.

In plain terms: more of the boneless chicken behind the sandwiches, tenders, and other fast-growing menu items that restaurants and grocers keep asking for.

What's actually changing at the plant

Pilgrim's described the project as a shift in what the Ellijay plant produces, not just a bigger building. The company said the investment supports its key customers' growth plans by changing the facility's product mix toward those in-demand boneless categories.

Company leadership called Ellijay a strong-performing facility with a talented team, and said the expansion is meant to improve efficiency and position the operation for future demand, according to the announcement.

The Chattanooga connection

The Ellijay news comes bundled with a change across the state line. As part of the same strategy, Pilgrim's said it will close the aging harvesting portion of its Chattanooga, Tennessee, operations.

The company said it will keep using Chattanooga's deboning infrastructure to support Ellijay's expanded operations, so the two facilities are being knit together rather than the work simply disappearing. Pilgrim's said the Chattanooga harvesting closure affects 348 team members.

For those workers, the company said it is offering eligibility to transfer to other Pilgrim's locations, the chance to apply for open roles at facilities across the country, on-site transition support, and continued work with local workforce partners.

Why this matters for Gilmer County

Poultry processing is a backbone industry in this part of North Georgia, and Pilgrim's Ellijay plant sits among the county's biggest sources of steady, year-round jobs. A tens-of-millions-of-dollars investment in the existing plant is the kind of signal local families watch closely — it points toward continued demand for workers here rather than a wind-down.

The company also said there will be no impact on the grower base in the region, an important note for the local farmers who raise birds under contract and whose livelihoods are tied to the plant's operations.

Pilgrim's did not publicly detail a specific number of new Ellijay jobs tied to the expansion, or a construction timeline, in its announcement. Those details — how many positions the added capacity creates and when the upgraded lines come online — are worth watching as the project moves forward.

The bigger picture

Pilgrim's cast the Ellijay project as part of a broader company effort to modernize plants, sharpen its product lineup, and build a more resilient supply chain. The company employs roughly 63,000 people and runs processing and prepared-foods plants across 14 states and several countries.

Set against that national footprint, the decision to pour money into Ellijay — and to route Chattanooga's deboning work here — reads as a vote of confidence in the local operation. For a county where the plant helps anchor the economy, that's the headline underneath the headline.

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