Tyson Foods receives almost $540,000 in tax credits for new slaughtering method in Columbus Junction

Tyson Foods received $537,337 in tax credits from Iowa Economic Development Authority last week to upgrade its slaughtering process at its Columbus Junction facility.

The $15.4 million project will replace the process of electrically stunning pigs before slaughter with the use of carbon dioxide to kill them.

The carbon dioxide process “results in superior meat quality and avoids the contamination associated with ingesta that is common with traditional stunning systems,” according to an IEDA document.

It is expected to create 10 new jobs, eight of which are at or above the $19.65 per hour threshold in Louisa County necessary for IEDA’s High Quality Jobs Program.

That is equivalent to about $53,734 in state tax credits per job created. Excluding the jobs that do not meet IEDA requirements, Tyson received about $67,167 per job created.

As Tyson received one tax credit, it returned another to IEDA.

Its $43.8 million project in Dallas County could not meet IEDA's job requirements for a $674,326 tax credit.

“We feel that the positions exist to fulfill the terms,” said Jan Nash, Tyson’s senior director of taxes, in a letter to IEDA.

“There have been struggles to get enough applicants to fill all positions.”

It’s not the first time a major employer has needed to turn back state funding because of challenges filling vacant positions. Diamond V, a subsidiary of Cargill, returned about $2 million in state tax credits earlier this year because it could not meet the jobs requirement.

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