Tyson Foods announced plans Thursday to close two beef facilities and pursue the sale of a third, as a yearslong shortage of U.S. cattle continues to weigh on the country’s largest meatpacker.
Tyson said it plans to shut down its Joslin, Illinois, beef processing plant and its Eagle Mountain, Utah, case-ready facility, while also moving to sell its Pasco, Washington, beef plant. Tyson said it will consolidate its beef business around three facilities in Dakota City, Nebraska; Holcomb, Kansas; and Amarillo, Texas, and plans to add a second shift at the Amarillo plant as cattle supply allows.
The Joslin plant employs more than 2,000 people and can process about 3,000 cattle per day, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Pasco facility can slaughter about 2,000 cattle per day. Tyson declined to say how many workers in total would be affected by the closures, according to Reuters. The company said it will work with affected employees to apply for positions at other facilities.
The moves follow Tyson’s earlier-this-year closure of its Lexington, Nebraska, beef plant — among the sector’s biggest operations, employing roughly 3,200 workers with a daily capacity near 5,000 head of cattle — alongside a cutback at the Amarillo facility to one shift, according to Reuters. All told, this year’s closures represent Tyson stepping away from roughly a third of its former beef-processing capacity, according to the Journal.
CEO Donnie King, writing to employees, cited recent U.S. Department of Agriculture data that showed limited signs of cattle ranchers expanding their herds, “which indicates these supply constraints are likely to persist, requiring strategic action.
The U.S. cattle herd has shrunk to a 75-year low, squeezing processors with higher input costs at a time when retail beef prices have climbed to all-time highs. Tyson stock gained 1.6% in after-hours trading Thursday.
Tyson had lowered its fiscal 2026 profit forecast earlier this month as beef segment losses worsened. For the full fiscal year, Tyson now projects its beef segment will generate an adjusted operating loss somewhere between $500 million and $650 million, a wider range than the $350 million to $500 million loss it had previously guided. In its most recent quarter, the beef segment posted an adjusted operating loss of $142 million, with sales volumes down nearly 16% even as average beef prices rose about 12%.
JBS, Tyson’s largest U.S. beef-processing rival by volume, posted an adjusted North American beef loss of $138 million in the quarter through June 30.
