US meat major Tyson Foods is to shut three facilities in its domestic market.

The company is closing two facilities in Pennsylvania and one in Kansas.

By the end of January, two sites in Philadelphia will shut down, with 229 staff affected, according to a filing with the Pennsylvania state government.

The facilities are linked to the Original Philly Holdings business Tyson acquired seven years ago.

Further west in Kansas, Tyson will close a beef and pork site in Emporia in February. According to reports in the US, the facility employs more than 800 workers.

A spokesperson for Tyson described the closure in Emporia as a “difficult decision” and had been made to “increase the efficiency of our operations”.

The spokesperson added: “The state of Kansas is important to Tyson Foods, with employment of more than 5,000 team members across our other Kansas facilities.”

Last month, Tyson booked a 0.8% rise in annual sales to $53.31bn. It posted an operating income of $1.41bn, versus an operating loss of $395m a year earlier. Net income attributable to Tyson stood at $800m, against a loss of $648m the year previous.

Nevertheless, speaking to analysts, Tyson’s management said the company faced another challenging year in the beef protein segment, the group’s largest revenue earner.

In March, Tyson said it would permanently close a pork plant in Iowa, a move affecting nearly 1,300 jobs.

In July, the company sold a poultry processing complex to local poultry producer House of Raeford Farms.