NEWS IN BRIEF

County issues bonds to build poultry plant

Randolph County Judge David Jansen confirmed Friday that the county issued up to $135 million in revenue bonds to build a Peco Foods Inc. poultry plant.

Jansen said an official announcement about the plant is scheduled for March 10 in Little Rock.

According to the documents signed by Jansen on Thursday, Peco Foods is authorized to use the bonds to finance the cost of acquiring, building and equipping a poultry processing operation, including land and a related wastewater-treatment facility.

In September, privately held Peco Foods said it was considering an expansion into sites in northeast Arkansas. In 2011, the Tuscaloosa, Ala.-based company purchased operations of bankrupt Townsends Inc. for $51 million. The purchase included a plant in Batesville and a feed mill in Newark.

In 2012, Peco Foods invested $13.8 million in its Arkansas operations.

  • John Magsam

Wal-Mart purchases recipe tech Yumprint

WalmartLabs, Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s online and digital development division, is acquiring Yumprint, a startup recipe technology company.

Yumprint, available both online and through an iPhone app, displays more than 15 million recipes each month. It also matches ingredients to advertisements, calculates nutritional information and prepares shopping lists from recipes.

The tech company’s unique browser extension, Recipe Clipper, allows Chrome, Safari and Firefox users to save recipes from any website to their Yumprint cookbook.

WalmartLabs also recently began a small Walmart To Go grocery delivery pilot in the San Francisco; San Jose, Calif.; and Denver areas. Customers can have their grocery orders delivered to their homes or have them available for pickup at participating stores for free.

  • Cyd King

Arkansas Index rises 0.47, ends at 325.56

The Arkansas Index, a price-weighted index that tracks the largest public companies based in the state, climbed 0.47 to 325.56 Friday.

Eleven stocks in the index advanced and six declined.

Shares of Simmons First National rose 1.6 percent on average volume, and Tyson Foods rose 1.4 percent in average trading and hit a 52-week high.

For the week, 13 stocks were up, three fell and one was unchanged.

USA Truck Inc.’s shares rose 7.4 percent for the week, and P.A.M. Transportation Services Inc. fell 5.9 percent.

The index was developed by Bloomberg News and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette with a base value of 100 as of Dec. 30, 1997.

Business, Pages 31 on 03/01/2014

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