Tyson Foods opens bacon processing plant in Kentucky

Tyson Foods opened a new processing plant in Bowling Green, Ky., this week. The 400,000-square-foot plant cost $355 million to build and outfit and will employ around 450 workers.

The facility is expected to produce two million pounds of bacon weekly for its Wright and Jimmy Dean retail brands and for food service customers.

“Our innovative new plant in Bowling Green reflects a major investment that we are proud to make in south-central Kentucky,” said Tyson Foods CEO Donnie King. “This enables us to focus on the health and safety of our team members while also delivering best-in-class service for our customers.”

King said bacon represents more than $1 billion in sales across retail and food service at Tyson Foods, and the plant will help the company meet existing and future needs for the company.

Tyson said it chose Bowling Green for the plant because of its proximity to raw materials in the company’s pork supply chain and to inbound and outbound transportation lanes.

“Bacon is a growing category based on consumer demand, both at home and at restaurants, and our expanded production will enable us to lead this growth and drive innovation,” said Melanie Boulden, chief growth officer at Tyson Foods.

The Bowling Green plant is the second smart plant opened by Tyson Foods in recent months including an automated chicken facility in Danville, Va.,, and is part of $1.3 billion Tyson earmarked for technology investments in fiscal 2023.

The new plants in Kentucky and Virginia come on the heels of several older plant closures last year as Tyson sought to streamline operations by using more technology, improving efficiency and product yield, while also reducing the number of employees.

Tyson said the Bowling Green plant uses advanced automation and combines high-tech robots that help eliminate repetitive transport tasks like moving products along multiple production lines and packing and stacking boxes. The facility also uses driverless forklifts and autonomous guide vehicles.

King said in 2023 it made more sense to build more new automated plants than to retrofit the older facilities. He said the newer plants increase Tyson’s total production despite the lower number of employees because many of the tasks have been automated. King said there is no substitute for employees, but given the higher turnover rates with some jobs it made more sense to automate those tasks. He said employees now work with technology to increase production efficiency while reducing some of the ergonomically challenged roles.

Tyson Foods will report its first-quarter results on Feb. 5 and its annual shareholder meeting on Feb. 8.