Hope Kiwanis Hears Tyson Program
The Hope Kiwanis Club had a fascinating program on Tuesday (2-11) from Tyson. Tonya Frazier, Hayden Luker, and Linda Burke were there from the Tyson plant with Luker handling the program.
Tyson locally has had some significant expansion in Hempstead County. The Nashville plant and Hope are under one umbrella as a breeder department. This affects pullet growers and hen growers. There are 30 pullet farms servicing the Hope facility and 58 breeder hen farms. At the moment, Luker says the company has 1.2 million pullet and breeder hens in the field today. About 650,000 of this number are mature laying hens. These hens are responsible for 96 million eggs to the hatchery over a 37-week span.
Luker said the new hatchery on the Rocky Mound Road in Hope has been fully operational since the first of November. The hatchery represents an $85 million dollar capital investment. This is coupled with the new $75 million dollar feed mill which is located near Fulton. The feed mill also serves the Nashville and Hope growers.
The company brings in about 700,000 eggs daily to be set in incubators. The hatchability rate is now at 83%, that’s about 3% higher than their old one and means an additional 70,000 chicks per week. They place about 1.3 million baby chicks to the Hope broiler division and just over a million to the broiler division in Nashville. That’s about 2.4 million chicks weekly. That’s about 70% capacity for the new hatchery. The new Hope hatchery is also the largest for Tyson foods. Clarksville is currently building a similar one.
The plant has an increased plant harvest forecast which has led to expanded broiler housing for the Hope complex. In the last ten years, Hope has harvested about 970,000 chickens per week. Capacity is just over 1.3 million per week. The plant has been expanding that production so the need for new broiler houses is there. The complex plans to have 13 million square feet in broiler houses by September. This is an increase by about 35%. Currently the hope complex has been serviced by 555 broiler houses and the plant is adding 100 broiler houses. The average square footage of broiler houses is about 33,000. The current broiler houses being constructed are 55 feet by 600 feet.
Tyson currently harvests about 8.9 million pounds of chicken per week. These chickens are about 7.7 pounds. Luker also explained their “chicken paw” business to China. He noted they are investing about $1.2 million dollars in processing for “chicken paws” locally. Luker says the “chicken paw” business is actually the most profitable per pound part of the chicken.
The Hope plant produces about 2.2 million pounds of chicken nuggets weekly. That’s 49 million chicken nuggets a week. The plant also produces 600,000 pounds of crispy patties every week. The plant also does about 3 million pounds of leg quarters per week.
The new hatchery is fully staffed at 49 employees. The Hope plant has hired 579 new employees in the last six months. The complex currently employs 1,469 people and lacks about fifty employees to be fully staffed. The average hourly rate of pay is $17.38 and production is averaging $16.83 per hour.
Luker answered questions from the club. He explained their procedures to keep bird flu out and explained there hasn’t been any of that locally.
The Kiwanians greatly enjoyed the program.
