Brawley Beef Company

National Beef Packing Co. said Friday that it had entered a nonbinding agreement to buy Brawley Beef, a big feedlot and packinghouse operator in Imperial County. The purchase -- which comes at a difficult time for the industry -- would expand the operations of National Beef, the fourth-largest U.S. beef producer, to the West Coast. Brawley is a producer cooperative in California and Arizona that slaughters about 400,000 head a year at a plant it opened five years ago in Brawley.

National Beef Packing Co. said Friday that it had entered a nonbinding agreement to buy Brawley Beef, a big feedlot and packinghouse operator in Imperial County. The purchase -- which comes at a difficult time for the industry -- would expand the operations of National Beef, the fourth-largest U.S. beef producer, to the West Coast. Brawley is a producer cooperative in California and Arizona that slaughters about 400,000 head a year at a plant it opened five years ago in Brawley.