Walmart to build $257M beef-packing facility in Kansas

Walmart on Tuesday announced plans to open a $257 million beef packaging and distribution facility in Olathe, Kansas, as the retail giant works toward its goal of building a full Angus beef supply chain.

It’s the first time Walmart, the nation's largest food retailer, has owned and operated a so-called “case-ready” beef facility, though it owns a similar facility in Thomasville, Georgia, that opened in June 2020. 

The 330,000-square-foot building, scheduled to open in 2025, will create 667 new jobs and will employ about 1,000 people during the construction project, according to a press release from Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly. Construction is expected to begin later this year.

Once it opens, the facility will distribute a selection of Angus cuts from Sustainable Beef LLC in North Platte, Nebraska, to Walmart stores across the Midwest, the retailer said.

Last August, Walmart acquired a minority stake in the rancher-owned, premium beef company. The investment is helping Sustainable Beef open a $325 million processing facility at its Nebraska headquarters, slated to debut late next year.

Walmart first announced its goal of developing an end-to-end supply chain for Angus beef in 2019 to “meet customer demand for a more transparent supply chain,” the retailer said at the time.

“As clean labels, traceability and transparency become more and more important to customers, we’ve made plans to enter into the beef industry creating an unmatched system that allows us to deliver consistent quality and value,” Scott Neal, then-Walmart’s SVP of meat, said in 2019.

Walmart on Tuesday called the Olathe case-ready facility “an important milestone” as it looks to bolster its supply chain and increase its pipeline of high-quality beef.

“The way our customers shop for food has evolved over the past few years, with more seeking greater transparency in the supply chain,” David Baskin and Bruce Heckman, Walmart’s SVP of deli, meat and seafood and VP of manufacturing, private brands, respectively, said in a company blog post. “We’ll continue to work hand in hand with our suppliers to ensure we’re delivering high-quality products, increasing transparency, resiliency and capacity through the supply process and meeting increased demand for our customers.”