Nebraskans living near Lexington, where a Tyson Foods packing plant is closing, are hoping another business will come along soon.
A beef packing plant's closure in Lexington, Nebraska will mean nearly a third of the town's residents are laid off. Experts say cattle packers may have needed the adjustment.
Transcript
When Tyson Foods announced in late November that it would be closing its Lexington, Nebraska beef packing plant, the town’s residents initially hoped it was just a bad rumor.
Rocio Casanova - Lexington, Nebraska: “To me and my husband, we couldn’t believe that. It was like: ‘Wow, Tyson is closing!’”
But as of this week, only 142 of 3,212 employees were to remain, with those final layoffs expected by late July. The town of 10,000, once known for a tight housing market, now has more than 50 homes for sale.
Rocio Casanova, a longtime community leader and children’s librarian, said hundreds of residents have been searching for new jobs since the closure was announced. Businesses are nervous as activity slows.
Rocio Casanova - Lexington, Nebraska: “I took it like when you are grieving somebody. Like you have someone you love so much and you see every day. And that person dies. So these people are, like, in shock first, then they are going through that grieving process and they just need to let it out. And somebody just needs to listen to them and then tell them everything is going to be okay.”
The town’s library became a gathering point for displaced workers seeking advice. Other regional packing plants had representatives available, while a few lawyers and financial advisors - some traveling from Omaha - offered assistance, especially to recent immigrants for whom English is a second language. Volunteers raised more than $250,000 for a relief fund, helping out more than 3,000 people.
The plant building itself has a long industrial history. It once housed a Sperry-New Holland combine factory that closed in 1985. IBP remodeled it for meatpacking in 1990, and Tyson acquired it in 2001. Casanova said some families are holding out hope that another company will move in. But time is running out.
Rocio Casanova - Lexington, Nebraska: “My biggest worry is … what are we going to do to retain these people in the community? Because we have become a really big family…If nothing comes, what’s going to happen to the businesses in town? What’s going to happen to the people who have a home here?”
Experts say that while losing the town’s largest employer will be painful, the closure does make beef-packing capacity more efficient nationwide.
Elliott Dennis, an associate professor of livestock and meat economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said pandemic-era disruptions and federal incentives led to a number of new processing facilities. In Nebraska, Sustainable Beef, a Walmart-connected plant, opened in North Platte in 2025, just an hour’s drive from Lexington.
That expansion came as the national herd dropped to a 74-year low of 86 million head. At the same time, live cattle imports from Mexico fell an estimated 75% in 2025 after the border closed over concerns about New World screwworm.
Elliott Dennis, Center for Agricultural Profitability, University of Nebraska-Lincoln: “We were in that 75 to 78 percent utilization. And so really we we were, we had so much capacity out there that there were some incentives to say maybe we need to close some of these plants. And after that plant closure, we essentially bumped up to 80, 85, 86 percent plant utilization.”
The Lexington plant could process up to 5,000 cattle a day - roughly 4.5% of the national capacity. Its closure may help other facilities remain open in the short term. Tyson also operates another Nebraska plant about 260 miles away in Dakota City. Tyson did not respond to a request for comment.
Elliott Dennis, Center for Agricultural Profitability, University of Nebraska-Lincoln: “Think about the major four packers: they were really the only one who had two plants in a given state. And so when they’re thinking about where can we kind of strategically if needed to close a plant, where could it have been, you know gives us the opportunity to process animals. I think that’s why they ended up closing the Lexington plant.”
Dennis said the regional economic impact will be significant. A study he co-authored estimates a combined direct and indirect loss of $3.3 billion. When including other businesses, the total job loss could approach 7,000.
Elliott Dennis, Center for Agricultural Profitability, University of Nebraska-Lincoln: “And so it's a very large impact, and it has implications not only for the state, as far as, you know, tax revenues and total spend, but also has implications for kind of the local economy.”
John Schroeder, general manager of Darr Feedlot, located just a 15-minute drive from the Lexington Tyson plant, said area cattle producers are fortunate to have other packing options. Darr Feedlot, which feeds 48,000 cattle, previously sent 70 percent of them the seven miles to Lexington.
John Schroeder, Darr Feedlot - Cozad, Nebraska: “That’s a big hit for our community but we still have a lot of market access going south into Kansas markets to multiple plants, we’ve got a new plant in North Platte, Nebraska, just 45 miles down the road, and we’ve got plants west out in Colorado that are available, and we can go into our eastern Nebraska plants as well. So again, a great area to feed cattle. We’ve got a lot of market access.”
Schroeder said producers typically negotiate with packers over who might cover that additional shipping cost. Darr Feedlot has managed to shift its cattle to other packing plants, but longer hauls have increased the workload for its employees.
John Schroeder, Darr Feedlot - Cozad, Nebraska: “Logistics is a big part of that. That there’s going to be maybe a four-hour haul, an hour to unload, and four hours’ drive back. That’s a nine-hour day and there’s not much time to get much else done.”
Schroeder added that strong consumer demand for beef has helped cushion the blow for the cattle industry. But the outlook for the town remains uncertain.
John Schroeder, Darr Feedlot - Cozad, Nebraska: “We could lose between 5,000 and 7,000 people in a worst-case scenario. I don’t see that today at this point in time. We see a lot of families that want to stay in this community … and drive further to be at some jobs within this 60-mile radius. But …it’s going to take some time to attract those businesses… And I think we have to be realistic about that.”
By Colleen Bradford Krantz, colleen.krantz@iowapbs.org