Tyson now looking beyond Tonganoxie for poultry plant

Tyson Foods is backing away from its plans to build a new poultry complex in Tonganoxie, Kansas, and instead is looking at other locations to build the $320 million facility.

Roy Graber Headshot
(Tyson Foods)
(Tyson Foods)

Tyson Foods is backing away from its plans to build a new poultry complex in Tonganoxie, Kansas, and instead is looking at other locations to build the $320 million facility.

Tyson Foods on September 5 revealed plans to build the poultry complex in Tonganoxie, stating that the complex would include a poultry plant with a capacity to process 1.25 million birds per week, a feed mill and a hatchery. About 1,600 people were expected to be employed at the complex.

However, a public forum held on September 15 revealed the sentiment that citizens of Tonganoxie and Leavenworth County did not want Tyson to build there. Before the forum concluded, four state legislators present stated that they would do what they could to prevent Tyson Foods from building in Tonganoxie.

Three days later, the Leavenworth County Commission voted 2-1 to rescind a resolution of intent in which the county would issue as much as $500 million in industrial revenue bonds to support the project.

Following the county’s latest motion, Tyson Foods on September 19 distributed an open letter to the Leavenworth County community. The letter was signed by a Doug Ramsey, president of Tyson Foods poultry group.

“After Monday’s reversal of support by the Leavenworth County commissioners, we will put our plans in your community on hold,” Ramsey wrote. “We still have interest in Leavenworth County, but will prioritize the other locations in Kansas and other states that have expressed support.”

Ramsey, in the letter, further described the proposed poultry complex as a good project that is important to Tyson Foods and its ability to serve its customers, and one that will give a boost, both economically and otherwise, for the right community.

The full text of the letter appears below.

Open letter from Tyson Foods to the Leavenworth County community:

Over 5,700 Tyson Foods “team members” are proud to live and work in Kansas. We care about each other, our communities and our company. We successfully operate six facilities in the state, provide thousands of good paying jobs and generate an annual economic impact of about $2.4 billion in Kansas. This goes back decades and in some cases we’ve been growing with our Kansas communities for over 50 years. Given our success here it made a lot of sense to consider new growth plans in Kansas.

We were invited by state and local leaders to build a new $320 million poultry complex in your community. They encouraged us to come to Leavenworth County. In a show of support, the county commissioners unanimously approved a resolution to use industrial revenue bonds for the project. We saw this shared investment, and the $150 million in annual economic impact it would have, as a win for the company and the people of Leavenworth County.

Given the scope of our project, we knew there would be questions and recognized that you would have an important voice in the decision-making process. That’s why we met with some of you after our initial announcement, planned more meetings and offered community leaders a chance to see our facilities first hand. Unfortunately, we’ve not been able to reach as many of you as quickly as we had hoped. As a result, most of you haven’t gotten to know us very well. For example, you may not know the following:

  • We are a diverse team that shares core values that call us to operate with integrity and respect.
  • Delivering sustainable food at scale is at the heart of our strategy, we share a comprehensive sustainability report every year and have recently made significant commitments to healthier workplaces, healthier animals and a healthier environment.
  • We operate under a Team Member Bill of Rights and provide competitive wages as well as benefits that include health insurance, retirement savings and stock purchase programs, tuition reimbursement, paid vacation and holidays.
  • Tyson Foods was recognized in 2017 by Fortune magazine as No. 1 on the World’s Most Admired Companies list in the Food Production segment.

We’d still like to get to know each other, however, after Monday’s reversal of support by the Leavenworth County commissioners, we will put our plans in your community on hold. We still have interest in Leavenworth County, but will prioritize the other locations in Kansas and other states that have expressed support.

This is a good project that we are deeply passionate about. It’s important to the future of our company and our ability to serve our customers. We also believe it will be a significant boost — and not just economically — for the right community.

Doug Ramsey
Group President Poultry
Tyson Foods, Inc.

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