Johnny Imerman’s pitch must have sounded like a God-send to the Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority.
A rich Atlanta recycling magnate who’d years earlier sold his business for $65 million had his sights on a startup venture in a shuttered Macon poultry plant.
The company, King David Kosher, would invest $28 million to revitalize a former Cagle’s poultry plant and turn it into the state’s first kosher chicken processor, state and company officials announced in 2001.
The plant would kill and process birds in strict accordance to Jewish dietary law, hiring rabbis to oversee the slaughter. Imerman would hire 350 unemployed chicken plant workers – and one day up to 800 – who were facing the end of unemployment assistance. Most jobs would start at $7 to $9 per hour.
Locals ponied up $100,000 in tax breaks. And the state pledged a $500,000 EDGE grant to help Imerman acquire $3 million in specialized chicken slaughtering equipment and sanitary plumbing systems.
The state funding was made in return for the promise of 350 new jobs and at least $8 million in private investment.
But just as there was hope, there were a lot of missed red flags.
Though Imerman had assembled a team of former Cagle’s managers, he had no experience in the poultry business, which can be buffeted by shifting demand and price swings for birds.
King David was trying to break into a kosher chicken business dominated by just a few powerful players.
Company officials even told economic development personnel that it made more financial sense for the company to locate in North Dakota instead of Macon.
Imerman also had a checkered financial past, which included history of unpaid bills as well as the foreclosure in the 1990s of his $7.5 million Buckhead home. But state and local officials told the AJC in 2003 they never evaluated his personal finances. Attempts to reach Imerman were not immediately successful.
King David hired 201 people, including 179 hourly workers and 11 rabbis, and started processing 25,000 birds per day, state progress reports show. Almost immediately, there were problems.
King David had trouble obtaining a key kosher certification, meaning a “majority of market would not use their product,” according to a state memo. The plant closed in May 2002, a few months after it opened.
Imerman made repeated promises to state and local officials that he’d obtain new financing and find new business, but couldn’t deliver. He tried to acquire some business from a defunct rival and later tried to partner with a Mexico-based kosher firm.
Soon, the company had racked up more than $1.5 million in debt, and vendors were demanding to be paid, according to prior reports in the AJC.
Ultimately, a progress report from the state put it simply: “This has proved to be an unsuccessful project due to the company’s closing.”
The local development authority was left holding $500,000 in chicken killing equipment and plumbing systems.
Pat Topping, senior vice president of the Macon Economic Development Commission, said local officials have tried for nearly a decade to market the plant and the remaining equipment — most of which still functions — “without any luck.”
The property still belongs to Cagle’s.
Though King David failed, Topping said, the program has been an overwhelming success for Macon in about a dozen other projects, calling his agency “good stewards” of incentive funds.
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