Operations at Sanderson Farms’ newest poultry complex have gone well since it opened in February, with the company expecting it to reach full production in 2020.
Speaking during the Stephens Fall Investment Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, on November 11, Lampkin Butts, president and chief operating officer of Sanderson Farms, spoke favorably about the company’s new complex in Tyler, Texas, and how operations there have helped the third largest poultry company in the United States process even more chicken.
Sanderson Farms, according to the WATTAgNet Top Poultry Companies Database, produced 82.5 million pounds of ready-to-cook chicken on a weekly basis in 2018. Butts said the company expects its volume to be up 2% in 2019, and as the Tyler complex ramps up, he said the volume should be up even more in 2020.
“We have slowly ramped up production there, and when we annualize that volume in Tyler next year, our volume will be up 7% in 2020,” said Butts.
“The Tyler, Texas, opening and ramp-up has been very successful so far. They are 75% of full production, which is on full schedule for what we set out to do. We are 1 million head per week, we’ll be at 1.2 million head per week before next summer.”
Key to the success of the new poultry complex -- which includes a processing plant, feed mill and hatchery -- is an available and capable workforce. Butts said in some of the geographic regions where Sanderson Farms operates, there are labor pool shortages. But in the Tyler area, “there have been no issues.”
“One of the reasons we selected that market was labor availability,” he said.
Butts was joined at the conference by Mike Cockrell, chief financial officer of Sanderson Farms. While addressing the conference, the two also discussed current developments regarding potential trade between the U.S. and China.
