WYOMING -- After back-to-back years of losing money in a volatile turkey market, a local co-op will hedge against fluctuating commodity prices by cooking more of its meat.

Michigan Turkey Producers is spending $3.6 million to increase production capacity at 1100 Hall St. SW by more than 50 percent.

The project, spurred by undisclosed private-label deals, will add 35 jobs, co-op representative said.

"The cooked business is the reason why we only lost a little money," said Dan Lennon, president and chief executive officer. "You're adding value to the product. You're getting that much closer to the stage at which the consumer can eat it."

The co-op was formed in 2000 by area turkey farmers who previously supplied a now-defunct Bil Mar Foods Inc. processing plant in Borculo. About 4.5 million birds, all toms and no holiday hens, now are slaughtered and processed each year in a former french fries factory at 2140 Chicago Drive SW.

Most of the meat, about 120 million pounds annually, is sold raw, including thighs to Mexico, for example, and gizzards to China. In 2006, the co-op transformed a former Van Eerden Distribution Co. facility on Hall Street into a cookery where volume has grown to 28 million pounds annually.

Lennon said the cooked turkey is sold internationally to food service distributors like GFS and Sysco, retailers like Meijer and Spartan and bulk discount warehouses like Costco and Sam's Club. Some of the turkey is sold under the co-op's own label, Golden Legacy.