Tyson Foods plans to build beef processing plant in Kazakhstan

Tyson Foods’ beef and pork subsidiary Tyson Fresh Meats is planning to build a beef processing plant in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The company has signed an agreement with the Republic of Kazakhstan and private holding company Kusto Group.

Kusto Group is a Singapore-based company that was established in Kazakhstan. It is reportedly a leader in beef producers in Kazakhstan.

The Republic of Kazakhstan Prime Minister Askar Mamin said: “We are delighted to welcome Tyson Foods to Kazakhstan.

“Tyson is a world-class company with the expertise necessary to help Kazakhstan jump-start the transformation of our agro-protein capabilities and help us create an ecosystem that will increase our beef herd size and establish conditions to support thousands of new high-quality jobs in the country.  We look forward to a long and mutually beneficial collaboration.”

The company expects the new facility to have a harvesting capacity of 2,000 heads per day. It also anticipates that the facility will create more than $1bn of agricultural economic benefit for Kazakhstan annually, once complete.

Tyson Fresh Meats group president Steve Stouffer said: “We’re pleased to execute an agreement with the Government of Kazakhstan and partner with Kusto.

“This opportunity supports one of our growth strategies to expand Tyson’s global business, and we look forward to bringing our expertise and capabilities to the country of Kazakhstan.”

This agreement forms part of an initiative by the Kazakhstan government to expand and modernise agriculture, beginning with meat production.

Last month, Tyson Fresh Meats announced that it will resume operations at its Holcomb beef plant in Kansas, which was partly destroyed by a fire in August this year.

Tyson Fresh Meats said that it has completed the majority of the reconstruction works at the facility. It expects to commence with partial operations in the first week of December and hopes that the facility will be completely operational by January next year.