Open Letter from Tyson Foods to the Leavenworth County Community
September 19, 2017
Over 5,700 Tyson Foods “team members” are proud to live and work in Kansas. We care about each other, our
communities and our company. We successfully operate six facilities in the state, provide thousands of good
paying jobs and generate an annual economic impact of about $2.4 billion in Kansas. This goes back decades
and in some cases we’ve been growing with our Kansas communities for over 50 years. Given our success here
it made a lot of sense to consider new growth plans in Kansas.
We were invited by state and local leaders to build a new $320 million poultry complex in your community.
They encouraged us to come to Leavenworth County. In a show of support, the county commissioners
unanimously approved a resolution to use industrial revenue bonds for the project. We saw this shared
investment, and the $150 million in annual economic impact it would have, as a win for the company and the
people of Leavenworth County.
Given the scope of our project, we knew there would be questions and recognized that you would have an
important voice in the decision-making process. That’s why we met with some of you after our initial
announcement, planned more meetings and offered community leaders a chance to see our facilities first
hand. Unfortunately, we’ve not been able to reach as many of you as quickly as we had hoped. As a result,
most of you haven’t gotten to know us very well. For example, you may not know the following:
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We are a diverse team that shares core values that call us to operate with integrity and respect.
Delivering sustainable food at scale is at the heart of our strategy, we share a comprehensive
sustainability report every year and have recently made significant commitments to healthier
workplaces, healthier animals and a healthier environment.
We operate under a Team Member Bill of Rights and provide competitive wages as well as benefits
that include health insurance, retirement savings and stock purchase programs, tuition
reimbursement, paid vacation and holidays.
Tyson Foods was recognized in 2017 by Fortune magazine as No. 1 on the World’s Most Admired
Companies list in the Food Production segment.

We’d still like to get to know each other, however, after Monday’s reversal of support by the Leavenworth
County commissioners, we will put our plans in your community on hold. We still have interest in Leavenworth
County, but will prioritize the other locations in Kansas and other states that have expressed support.
This is a good project that we are deeply passionate about. It’s important to the future of our company and our
ability to serve our customers. We also believe it will be a significant boost – and not just economically – for
the right community.
Doug Ramsey
Group President Poultry
Tyson Foods, Inc.