In the mid-1980s, the future of local kosher butcher shops looked bleak. The growing cost of bringing livestock to the butcher for preparation was making it more difficult for independent kosher and non-kosher butchers alike to stay in business.

Aaron Rubashkin already has innovated the kosher beef and poultry industry by introducing the self serve beef and poultry case that the future of quality meat production lay in bringing the butcher to the livestock instead of bringing the livestock all the way to the city butcher. He also saw a business opportunity that served the needs not only of his religious community, but for consumers everywhere.

Knowing that Iowa’s family farms are known to raise the best cattle in the world, Aaron purchased the former HyGrade meat processing plant in Postville, Iowa in 1987. The plant had been closed for seven years and the city’s leaders were eager to see it brought back to life for the benefit of the local economy and its farmers.

Aaron wanted Agriprocessors to be different. Most other large meat processors added kosher meat production as an afterthought. But Aaron designed the beef harvesting process in a way that would fully accommodate every rabbinical standard glatt kosher and regular kosher. Even the rabbinate of the state of Israel is accommodated in the process. He trusted that kosher customers would be reassured by his family’s commitment to kosher standards and that non-kosher customers would appreciate the better meat produced under kosher requirements.

Aaron also knew it would not be enough for his family to run the business from a distance. His sons, Sholom and Heshy Rubashkin, and his daughter and son in law Yossie Gourarie moved to Postville with their families and serve as Agriprocessors’ senior officers at the Postville plant. Many other families followed them and joined with local employees and their families to transform Agriprocessors’ Postville plant into a leading producer of kosher and non-kosher beef, veal, lamb, turkey and chicken products sold throughout the world.

From that beginning, Agriprocessors has grown to be the producer of choice, of many fine kosher beef products as well as chicken, turkey, veal and lamb. These products can be found in many supermarkets nationally such as Albertson’s Kroger, Shop Rite, Wal-Mart, Trader Joe’s, Ralph’s, Pathmark, H.E. Butt, etc.