Jacksonville is one of eight Tyson plant closings nationwide (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Daily Record) — Just days after Tyson Foods Inc. filed a notification of the closing of its Jacksonville meat-processing plant, the food company said it is one of eight plant closures in 2023.
“We will continue to evaluate our production footprint and network to drive efficiencies,” CEO Donnie King said in a conference call with analysts after Tyson’s fiscal year-end earnings report, according to a transcript posted by the company.
“We’ve made significant changes in chicken by announcing the closure of six of our older, less efficient plants, which we expect to improve our capacity utilization and mix,” he said in the Nov. 13 call.
“In a similar move to leverage efficiencies and reduce network redundancies, we also recently made the difficult decision to take two of our smaller fresh meats case-ready value-added facilities offline.”
Tyson disclosed in its annual report for the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 that the company closed two chicken plants in both Missouri and Arkansas and one each in Virginia and Indiana.
The annual report didn’t say anything about the meat plant closings, which are coming after the end of the fiscal year, and King did not identify them.
However, Springdale, Arkansas-based Tyson filed a notice Nov. 8 under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act that it will close its Jacksonville plant Jan. 8, eliminating 219 jobs.
Industry news website Just Food reported the other meat plant closing is in Columbia, South Carolina.
“Production from these locations will shift to larger, more efficient plants, and our harvest capacity, sales volume and, importantly, our customers will see no impact,” King said.
“We are reviewing whether there are similar opportunities across our segments,” he said.
Tyson’s annual report said the company operated five case-ready beef and pork plants at the end of the fiscal year.
Tyson bought the plant at 5441 W. Fifth St., in the Paxon area of West Jacksonville, in 2012.
While King didn’t specifically discuss the Jacksonville plant in the conference call, he did indicate trends in beef have changed since it opened.
“I think it’s important that when you’re evaluating beef that you evaluate it across the entire cycle, which is approximately 10 years, and I will tell you this thing moves quickly,” he said.
“A year ago, I was testifying before Congress with some of my peers because beef was making so much money and today, we’re talking about what it looks like on the downside.”
Tyson reported total sales in fiscal 2023 fell 0.8% to $52.9 billion and its adjusted earnings dropped by 85% to $1.34 a share.