Qualla: 2009 ConAgra Foods Plant Explosion

2009 ConAgra Foods Plant Explosion: Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit unknown, U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, Public domain. At 11:25 a.m. on June 9, 2009, the only factory in the world that made Slim Jims blew apart. The blast at the ConAgra Foods plant in Garner, North Carolina, sheared off a hundred thousand square feet of roof and walls, ruptured the refrigeration loop, and sent eighteen thousand pounds of ammonia drifting across the parking lot. Four workers died. Seventy-one were hurt. The cause was almost grimly ordinary: a contractor had spent two and a half hours venting natural gas into an enclosed utility room, and workers nearby had smelled it and shrugged.

Image: unknown, U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board | Public domain

2009 ConAgra Foods Plant Explosion: A Factory That Fed the World One Stick at a Time

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Indy beetle, CC0. The plant on Jones Sausage Road was older than most of the people who worked there. Built after World War II by the Jesse Jones Sausage Company, it passed to General Mills in 1968 and began producing Slim Jims soon after. By the time ConAgra Foods took over in 1998, the 450,000-s...

Image: Indy beetle | CC0

2009 ConAgra Foods Plant Explosion: The Morning the Pipes Wouldn't Light

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit unknown, U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, Public domain. A contractor from Energy Systems Analysts was installing a new industrial water heater that morning. To clear air from the three-inch supply pipe, he opened the valve and let natural gas itself blow through, venting the purged gas straight into the utility room. A fan ran. The cr...

Image: unknown, U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board | Public domain

2009 ConAgra Foods Plant Explosion: Ammonia in the Air, Names in the Memorial

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit unknown, U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, Public domain. The blast collapsed the packing area and tore open the refrigeration system. Anhydrous ammonia, used to keep the meat cold, hissed into the wreckage. Firefighters pushed in anyway; three of them were exposed to the fumes. Search teams worked into the evening once the fires were o...

Image: unknown, U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board | Public domain

2009 ConAgra Foods Plant Explosion: What Became of the Slim Jim Town

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit unknown, U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, Public domain. ConAgra reopened part of the plant six weeks later, then began letting workers go. Three hundred jobs vanished by November. In May 2011, the company shut the factory entirely and moved Slim Jim production to Ohio. ConAgra gave the wrecked site to the town of Garner along with $2....

Image: unknown, U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board | Public domain