Tyson Foods announced March 11 it plans to close its Perry pork processing plant in June to “optimize the efficiency of our operations to best serve our customers,” a company spokesperson stated.

The plant employs more than 1,200 people and processes about 8,250 hogs per day. That represents about 5.5% of Iowa’s hog slaughter capacity and roughly 1.7% of the U.S. hog slaughter capacity, according to Lee Schulz, an Iowa State University (ISU) Extension and Outreach ag economist.

Currently, Iowa has 20 federal and 121 state inspected pork plants with a total processing capacity of approximately 42 million hogs per year, according to research from Decision Innovation Solutions. The closure of the Perry plant will reduce the number of federally inspected facilities in the state to 19 and lower total annual slaughter capacity ...