Cargill is spending US$48m on an automated distribution system at its beef plant in Kansas to “better serve” its retail and industrial customers.

The US agribusiness group said the system at the site in Dodge City will be housed in a new building and hold 155,000 boxes of beef.

“This new distribution system will benefit our customers by improving order accuracy and on-time delivery, in addition to providing better capability to handle the ever-increasing complexity of product offerings shipped to domestic and international markets,” John Keating, president of Cargill Beef, said.