George's Inc. of Springdale said yesterday, 9 May, that it has completed the purchase of Tyson Foods Inc.'s poultry complex in Harrisonburg, Virginia, reports Arkansas Business.

The sale does not affect Tyson's other operations in Virginia, which include poultry production complexes at Glen Allen and Temperanceville.

The transfer of ownership took effect on 7 May and includes a processing plant in Harrisonburg and a hatchery in Broadway, as well as a feed mill and truck shop in New Market.

The companies did not disclose a sale price. The deal was originally announced in March.

The Harrisonburg complex employs more than 500 people and has 121 contract poultry farms. It produces commodity boneless and whole bird chicken, and chicken leg quarters for sale to retail, foodservice and international customers.

Gary George, chairman and CEO of George's, commented: "We expect to retain substantially all of the people who were employed by Tyson and will also honour the contracts Tyson had with local poultry growers.

"In fact, we plan to gradually increase poultry production in the complex, using more of its existing capacity. We believe this will benefit growers by reducing the amount of time between flocks and will help our production employees by giving them more work hours each week."

According to Arkansas Business, the Harrisonburg complex was among the poultry operations that publicly traded Tyson, also based in Springdale, acquired in 1989, when it purchased Holly Farms.