SPRINGDALE, ARK. – Tyson Foods Inc. set aggressive production goals during its Dec. 9 virtual investor day conference. Specifically, the company is targeting having 50% of its volume be value added by the end of fiscal year 2024. In fiscal 2021, value-added production made up 47% of volume. Tyson Foods plans to invest $1.8 billion to expand processing capacity.
“Using 2021 as a base, we have set volume targets across our company, which are ahead of projected market growth,” said Donnie King, president and chief executive officer. “Overall, we expect to grow our total company volume at 2% compound annual growth rate over the next three years, which will be roughly two-times the rate of expected protein consumption growth.”
Twelve manufacturing plants are expected to open over the next two years to increase capacity by 1.3 billion lbs, according to the company — including seven fully cooked chicken plants in the International business (six targeted for Asia) and two case-ready beef and pork plants that will result in a 40% increase in that specific capacity type.
Tyson Foods also plans to invest $1.3 billion in automation over the next three years to improve operations and reduce vulnerabilities to labor shortages. A key automation initiative will be to automate chicken deboning.
“This plan will help solve for one of the most labor-intensive processes and highest turnover areas across all harvest facilities,” said David Bray, group president of poultry. “With capital investment of nearly $500 million through fiscal 2024, we will automate 88 front half debone lines and 13 dark meat lines — generating labor savings equivalent to over 2,000 roles.”
Innovation in Prepared Foods also will propel Tyson Foods to meet its value-added volume goal, including moving brands such as Jimmy Dean and Hillshire Farm into new categories.