US meat giant Cargill is set to shut its protein processing plant in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The move will lead to the “permanent” elimination of around 221 jobs, the company said in a statement on 10 February.
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Cargill expects to begin winding down operations “soon”. Production is due to stop on or around 17 April, with the site fully closed by the end of May.
Separations will take place in phases, depending on customer and operational needs.
The first employee separations are expected on 11 April. Cargill said workers will receive at least 60 days of advance working notice and/or pay between notification and their end date.
“The company will continue to communicate with employees regarding the anticipated timeline,” the statement read.
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By GlobalDataCargill added affected employees can apply for open roles at its other facilities.
Employees leaving the company as part of the closure will be eligible for a severance package.
The move follows other changes in Cargill’s US protein footprint. Last year, the company closed its turkey-processing site in Springdale, Arkansas.
That factory produced fresh and frozen turkey products, bone-in turkey breasts and case-ready items.
At the time, Cargill said it would move “much of Springdale’s production” to its turkey plants in Missouri and Virginia.
In the broader US meat sector, Tyson Foods has recently pointed to continued constraints in cattle availability. Tyson said it expects supplies to remain “tight” for the foreseeable future as it reported another quarterly fall in beef volumes.
The company’s volumes dropped 7.3% in the three months to 27 December, compared with an 8.4% decline in the final quarter of fiscal 2025.
Tyson said those figures do not yet include the effect of its planned shutdown of the Lexington, Nebraska, beef facility. It announced the closure of its Lexington, Nebraska, beef facility in November, alongside a plan to scale back operations at its site in Amarillo, Texas.
Cargill has also faced legal claims linked to turkey pricing. In January last year, it agreed to a financial settlement tied to allegations of price-fixing in turkey.
A court document said direct purchaser plaintiffs (DPP) alleged Cargill and its “co-conspirators” had “conspired to fix, maintain and inflate the price of turkey in the US by exchanging competitively sensitive information”.
The document said one of the co-conspirators was Tyson Foods, which agreed to a $4.6m settlement with the same court in 2021, finalised the following year.
