Tyson turkey operation becomes Willow Brook

by Melissa Wilson

SBJ Staff

Let's talk turkey.

The former Tyson Foods turkey processing plant at 405 N. Jefferson is now Willow Brook Foods Inc. Tyson's ownership was in turn the result of its purchase of Hudson Foods in February. The plant had operated as Hudson Foods from 1990 until January of this year.

In the wake of that ownership upheaval, management pursued the purchase of the operation with a financial backer, Dallas-based Mission City Management Inc. Completion of the acquisition, for an undisclosed price, is set for Dec. 1.

Willow Brook President Mike Briggs, who has been at the plant since 1993 as director of the turkey division for Hudson, then Tyson, said the deal was attractive to bring stability to jobs and take advantage of the knowledge current management had of the operation.

"When speculation began as to whether Tyson would stay in the turkey business, (Mission City Management Inc.) called me up just to find out what the skinny was," Briggs said. "We began to talk and they expressed some interest, and I said that I had an interest in the plant as well."

Willow Brook Foods Inc. was formed in order to buy the plant from Tyson after Tyson decided to forego turkey production to concentrate on chicken products. Talks between the management group at Willow Brook, Mission City Management Inc. and Tyson began in September.

Mission City Management Inc. also owns another turkey company, a dairy and a seafood distributorship.

Willow Brook's operation comprises a Purdy feed mill, contract turkey growers in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri, a slaughterhouse on Main Street, and two processing plants: the Jefferson Avenue plant and one in Albert Lee, Minn.

Briggs said the Jefferson Avenue plant processes and delivers about 200 million pounds of deboned deli-style turkey annually to both wholesalers and retailers with its own fleet of trucks out of the distribution center at Springfield Underground.

Briggs said the partnership with Mission City Management Inc. is a perfect match because the management group at Willow Brook already had the work force needed to keep the plant going, and Mission City had the financial backing to make the purchase from Tyson possible.

Since the plant is still undergoing the transition from a division of a large, publicly owned corporation to a privately owned company, it's hard to tell yet what affect, if any, the sale will have on individual employees, Briggs said.

"Obviously, as part of Hudson and then as part of Tyson, there were a lot of things that those-sized companies were able to provide, from the standpoint of access to capital, expertise, employee benefits ... all of those things that were provided, we are now having to structure ourselves as a stand-alone company to be able to provide to ourselves and to our employees," Briggs said. The name Willow Brook Foods was chosen from a list of current brands that were owned by Hudson, then by Tyson, after the buyout.

"The name Willow Brook Farms was a brand that was owned by Tyson, but was not a brand that they were aggressively marketing. We did some consumer research relative to the brand attributes that we wanted and Willow Brook Farms scored the highest, so Willow Brook Farms became the brand that we marketed our core line after," Briggs said.

Since the name Willow Brook Farms is confusing, because it implies a dairy, it was changed to Willow Brook Foods to more accurately describe the operation as a food company and not one that is solely agricultural, Briggs said.

Tyson left the turkey business when it decided to concentrate on chicken.

"We announced several months ago that Tyson would turn its focus to chicken, and all other products, including turkey, would slowly be phased out," said Archie Schaffer, director of media affairs for Tyson. "When the folks at Willow Brook and their partners in Texas made us a fair and equitable offer for that facility, Tyson sold it to them."

PHOTO CAPTION:

Willow Brook employees pass by as a machine packages turkey in Springfield.

PHOTO CAPTION:

From plant to deli, Willow Brook employees supervise as turkey parts are packaged for distribution.[[In-content Ad]]