Tyson Foods will invest US $ 55 million to expand its boxed meat (retail) business, reusing the plant’s capacity at its previously closed facility in Columbia, SC. The factory will become a meat-cutting unit, producing retail-ready packages of sliced and fresh portions of beef and pork, as well as ground beef, for supermarkets and club stores in the eastern United States.
“We are pleased to bring operations back to Columbia and are very grateful for the strong state and local support we received for this project,” said Nate Hodne, senior vice president and general manager of the portioned protein innovation team at Tyson Fresh Meat, beef and pork subsidiary of Tyson Foods. “Once operational, this new facility will help us meet the growing demand from our retail customers with high quality, pre-cut and pre-packaged beef and pork.”
Initially, Tyson will invest US $ 42 million to transform the facility into a meat portioning and packaging operation that is expected to start production in May 2021. Over the next three to five years, the company plans to invest in additional improvements and production equipment. with an estimated total investment of $ 55 million. The new operation will employ 330 people, more than double the number who worked at the unit when it closed in August 2020.
Tyson Foods’ beef and pork business operates factories in Iowa, Tennessee and Texas, and the company plans to open a new facility in Utah later this year. The operations are called case-ready, because the packaged meat produced by Tyson’s facilities is ready to be placed directly in the refrigerated meat box in supermarkets and club stores.
Springdale-based Tyson Foods had beef sales of $ 15.742 billion last year and about 48% were ready-to-use retail products. The pork business had sales of $ 5.128 billion and 35% of products ready for retail, according to the company’s annual report.