Tyson Foods breaks ground on $136 million poultry processing plant in Green Forest

It’s been several months in the making but Springdale-based Tyson Foods recently broke ground on its new $136 million chicken processing facility in Green Forest with plans to add 85 jobs upon completion.

The new 200,000-square-foot plant was proposed to city and county officials in April and was contingent upon incentives provided by city and the Arkansas Economic Development Commission.

Tyson already employs more than 1,200 workers at its existing plant in Green Forest. The new facility is located adjacent to the other processing plant and is slated for completion by late 2017.

“This is the first new plant construction project Tyson Foods has proposed to build in a number of years and we’re hopeful we can partner with Carroll County and the AEDC to invest in our home state,” Noel White, Tyson’s president of poultry stated in the April announcement.

Tyson said the new plant will provide additional lines of production for chicken that is partially cooked and then sold to retailers and food service distributors. Building the new plant alleviates the need for Tyson’s transporting the chicken to other facilities farther away for further processing.