Tyson Foods will close its Tyson Fresh Meats plant in Emporia, Kansas, in 2025.
The Emporia Gazette reported that the 809 employees at the plant were notified via a letter that all operations at the facility would cease on February 14, 2025.
Emporia City Manager Trey Cocking told the Gazette that he had spoken to Tyson officials, who said the operations in Emporia would be consolidated into the operations at Tyson’s beef plant in Holcomb, Kansas, which is approximately 275 miles west of Emporia.
“Tyson told us this was about network optimization and trying to reduce their cost,” said Cocking, who said Tyson officials described the Emporia closure as inevitable. “At the Holcomb plant, it will be everything from slaughter to the processes that are currently done here.”
Opportunities to obtain employment at other Tyson facilities will be offered to about 25% of the Emporia plant’s workforce.
Tyson Foods took ownership of the Emporia plant in 2001 with the acquisition of Iowa Beef Packers (IBP).
Tyson Foods has announced numerous plant closures in the United States during the past several years, including six poultry plants. A pork plant in Perry, Iowa, has also ceased production. The company also recently sold its poultry plant in Vienna, Georgia, to House of Raeford Farms, and demolished a feed mill in Snow Hill, Maryland.
The Holcomb plant had operations disrupted for months in 2019 due to a fire, but the facility has since been rebuilt and repaired. At the time, it was estimated that about 3,500 people were employed there.
