Tyson Foods planning additional poultry capacity expansion

Tyson Foods recently dedicated its newest poultry complex in Humboldt, Tennessee, but the company is already thinking about how it will continue to expand its broiler operations.

Roy Graber Headshot
(Tyson Foods)
(Tyson Foods)

Tyson Foods recently dedicated its newest poultry complex in Humboldt, Tennessee, but the company is already thinking about how it will continue to expand its broiler operations.

Speaking during a conference call with reporters on May 10, Tyson Foods Chief Executive Officer Dean Banks and Chief Operating Officer Donnie King discussed the company’s ambitions to further grow its chicken segment.

Tyson Foods’ newest poultry complex in Humboldt was dedicated in April. King, who also is the company’s poultry group president, said the complex’s feed mill, hatchery and harvesting plants were operational, but that the company is still in a “ramp-up phase” there. King projected that the company will start harvesting animals in Humboldt in mid-to-late July, but it won’t be until the later part of 2022 before the facility is operating at full capacity.

But Tyson Foods isn’t stopping there.

“We see global protein demand growing,” said Banks. “The reason why we are investing in capacity is we are going to step up and meet that demand. We are making substantial investments in capacity across all of our businesses, specifically our areas that are strategically important to us domestically and globally. You will continue to see expansion.”

However, King said the current capacity, particularly related to broiler operations, is underutilized, and bringing those operations to full production will be a high priority.

“We need to fill up those plants. We’re sitting here with 15-20% latent capacity,” said King. “We’ve got some pretty inexpensive capacity to go utilize today, and we’ll probably do that first, but we’re already thinking about our next harvest plant as we move forward. We’re already in the planning stages for more further processing capacity and we’ll announce sometime later this year what that looks like.”

The conference call was held in conjunction with the company announcing the financial results of the second quarter of fiscal year 2021.

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