A California investment group announced this week that it has acquired a former Tyson Foods poultry plant in Pine Bluff, Arkansas that the company shut down in 2003 and sold to a different investment group in 2007.
The buyer, Horizon Foods LP, said it plans to use the plant for processing egg laying hens, primarily for foreign markets and expects to begin production about mid-June. The company will initially employ 175 people. Within three to five years, the company said, it expects to employ 329 people.
President and CEO of the Economic Development Alliance of Jefferson County Lou Ann Nisbett, said the company has been loaned $329,000 to help reopen the plant. The loan is funded by an economic development sales tax adopted last year.
