U.S Beef Industry Continues Restructuring with Tyson to Exit Three More Plants

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Written by Eric Funderburk for IIR News Intelligence (Sugar Land, Texas)

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Summary

With U.S. beef herds at record lows, Tyson Foods is shutting down operations at two beef plants and selling another.

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An Industry Facing Issues

In November, Tyson Foods sent warning signals through the U.S. beef sector when it announced it was closing a key Nebraska plant and cutting a shift at another plant in Amarillo, Texas. (For more on that, see December 1, 2026, article - Tyson's Nebraska, Texas Plant Reductions Show U.S. Beef Woes.) Now, the company is once again making changes at its facilities. This week, Tyson announced it would stop operations at two U.S. beef-focused facilities and sell another one, with the aim to more impactfully consolidate its beef processing operations into fewer plants. One of the plants benefitting from those consolidation plans is the Amarillo plant, where Tyson will reintroduce that lost second shift that had affected 1,700 workers.

Tyson's moves over the past 10 months or so beg the question of how smoothly operations will go for a large new beef-processing plant under construction in the Amarillo area as well as other expansion projects at existing plants.

Tyson's Latest Plans

Tyson's announcements on Thursday came quite suddenly--with most of the 2,500 employees at the company's beef processing plant in Joslin, Illinois, being told that Thursday or Friday would be their last day as the plant was closing immediately. Another closure was announced for the company's case-ready beef plant in Eagle Mountain, Utah, which Industrial Info Resources data show commenced operations only in 2021. Current employee figures for the Utah plant are less clear, but it was designed to employ 800 people with the possibility to expand to up to 1,200.

Tyson also announced it would put another beef processing plant in Pasco, Washington, up for sale. Industrial Info Resources' profile of the plant indicates it employs around 1,200 people and has been operating since the late 1960s with around a 2,000 head-per-day capacity.

Consolidation

Those closures provide some security and renewed employment at three centrally located Tyson beef plants. In last week's restructuring announcement, the company said: "Tyson Foods will anchor its beef business around three strategically located beef facilities in the central United States: Dakota City, Nebraska; Holcomb, Kansas; and Amarillo, Texas, to create a more competitive footprint amidst one of the most historic cattle shortages the country has ever experienced."

Other Restructuring Activity

Tyson's restructuring and its referencing historically low U.S. cattle numbers leave open the question of how other U.S. beef processors are faring. Another Big Four beef player, JBS, is in the midst of a certain amount of restructuring as well. Cattle harvesting and slaughtering operations were supposed to end Friday, August 14, at the company's plant in Souderton, Pennsylvania, allowing for modernizations to produce case-ready beef products.

The plant had been slated for full closure, but JBS pivoted to preserve some form of operations at the site after pressure from the state and union groups. Similarly to Tyson's plans, that preservation of the Pennsylvania plant may be coming at the price of another JBS case-ready facility in Memphis, Tennessee, which JBS is in the midst of closing.

Highlights for Amarillo

In the midst of all this restructuring and consolidation, Industrial Info Resources data show the Amarillo, Texas, area, is, in fact home to a number of new-build and expansion projects at beef plants. In addition to the renewed Tyson shift, the city is seeing a substantial beef sector addition in the form of Producer Owned Beef LLC's grassroot meatpacking plant on a 610-acre site off Spur 228 that will be able to process 3,000 head per day. Construction commenced in 2025 and is expected to wrap up by the end of 2028. Readers can access details of the project, including construction timelines, key contact details, and equipment and service needs, by clicking here.

In addition, Affiliated Foods is expected to later this year wrap up an expansion of its Amarillo meat packing plant, which provides retail-ready cuts to grocery stores and restaurants, while about 60 miles north of the city in Cactus, Texas, JBS is adding more than 120,000 square feet and performing other renovations at its beef processing plant in the Texas Panhandle.

Key Takeaways

• With U.S. cattle herds at historic lows, the U.S. beef sector is undergoing a period of restructuring.
• The latest restructuring announcement comes from Tyson Foods, which has announced it will close plants in Utah and Illinois and sell another plant in Washington.
• Some bright spots exist in key U.S. beef regions, Amarillo, Texas, being one of them, where new-build construction and expansions are underway at beef-processing plants.

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About Industrial Info Resources
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, Industrial Info Resources is tracking over 250,000 current and future projects worth $30.2 trillion (USD).