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Trump to Order U.S. Meat Plants to Stay Open Amid Pandemic-14,259 workers infected-59 dead-22 plants closed

Hormel pauses production at Kansas, Illinois plants due to COVID-19

The Austin, Minn-based company announced over the weekend that it had halted production for 14 days at its Alma Foods and Rochelle Foods plants.

Apr 20, 2020


Hormel Foods Corporation has shuttered production for two weeks at its Rochelle, Ill. plant and Alma, Kan. plant amid COVID-19 concerns. Rochelle Foods, LLC is pausing production for a period of 14 days based on a notice of closure from the local health department, while Alma Foods, LLC announced Saturday, out of an abundance of caution, it will temporarily pause operations at its facility and resume production on Monday, May 4. The production pause was due to one employee testing positive for COVID-19 and the additional team members in contact with this individual outside of the facility.

Since the Alma plant is a smaller production facility with minimal staffing, the company decided it was the best decision to pause the operations for 14 days to ensure the safety of its approximately 100 team members. A wholly owned subsidiary of Hormel Foods Corporation, Alma Foods produces a line of fully cooked meals and entrees as well as Saucy Blues barbeque for foodservice...:tiphat:https://www.nationalhogfarmer.com/bu...s-due-covid-19
 
...The Canadian arm of U.S. agribusiness Cargill Ltd CARG.UL. said in a statement it had started to temporarily idle its beef-processing plant in the community of High River in the province of Alberta because of an outbreak of COVID-19 and encouraged its staff to get tested for the respiratory virus as soon as possible.

Cargill did not say when operations would resume at the beef plant, which produces patties for McDonald’s Corp (MCD.N) and accounts for about 36% of total Canadian processing capacity, according to industry data.

The JBS closure limits the amount of meat the United States can produce for consumers during the outbreak and adds stress on farmers who are losing a market for their pigs.....:tiphat:https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-he...222GN?rpc=401&
 
Iowa Sends National Guard Troops to Defend Meat Plants From Virus


Stephen Joyce, Michael Hirtzer and Jen Skerritt, Bloomberg News

(Bloomberg) -- Hundreds of National Guard personnel are being activated in Iowa as coronavirus sweeps through meat-processing plants in a state that accounts for about a third of U.S. pork supply.

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds said 250 National Guard members have been moved to full-time federal duty status and could help with testing and contact tracing for workers at plants operated by Tyson Foods Inc. and National Beef Packing Co.

Activating guard soldiers is the latest attempt to contain the disease, which has forced a growing number of slaughterhouses and meat-processing plants to slow or halt operations.

The disruptions are stoking concerns for eventual fresh-meat shortages in grocery stores as well leaving some farmers without a market for their animals. That’s pushing down prices for hogs and cattle, while making meat more expensive. Wholesale pork posted its biggest three-day gain in six years.

“At some point we’re going to have to be talking about euthanizing hogs, and we’re not that far from it,” Reynolds told reporters. “And that would be devastating, not only for the food supply but for the cost of food going forward.”...:tiphat:https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/iowa-sen...irus-1.1424295
 
RENDERING PLANTS LACK CAPACITY TO HANDLE MASS DISPOSAL OF EUTHANIZED ANIMALS

EUTHANIZING LIVESTOCK WOULD BE A DOOMSDAY SCENARIO, RENDERING INDUSTRY LEADER SAYS.
By
Mike McGinnis
4/20/2020
David Ekstrom
INDIANOLA, Iowa -- From pork plants in South Dakota and Iowa to a poultry processing plant in Georgia to a meat processing plant in Colorado and beyond, the coronavirus is shutting plants nationwide.

Some workers at these plants are being infected with the coronavirus, and tragically, some have died.

As a result, major meat processing companies have announced temporary closures to clean and sanitize their facilities.
In Iowa, the governor has called in the U.S. National Guard to help with the outbreak of coronavirus infections.

Worried that producers would have to euthanize animals, Iowa’s governor has stated that it’s important to keep the meatpacking plants operating.

Meanwhile, animals that are market-ready have fewer places to go, sparking some producers to begin to wonder what options they have to move finished livestock.

The longer the packing plants remain closed, the more livestock supply will back up on feedlots, finishing houses, confinement facilities, etc.

If a doomsday scenario of producers having to euthanize whole herds of market-ready animals, the rendering industry would be unable to handle that amount of recycling, according to David Meeker, senior vice president of the Scientific Services for North American Renderers Association (NARA)....:tiphat:https://www.agriculture.com/news/liv...anized-animals
 
.....Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said Friday workers from the Minnesota pork plant and a Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, could be transferring the virus between the two facilities as there are a lot of family members that work in both plants. JBS’s Worthington facility is tied for third in total U.S. hog slaughter capacity, based on Steiner Consulting data. The facility employs 2,000 people and processes 20,000 hogs per day, according to the company statement.

There are reports of other major hog, cattle and poultry processing plants dealing with cases of coronavirus among their workforce and whether they can continue to stay open will depend on the scale of the outbreak, according to a Monday livestock report from the CME Group. The disease is impacting the entire supply chain and as plants work at reduced capacity or are closed altogether, “this could result in less product available at the grocery store,” according to the report....:tiphat:https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/minnesot...kers-1.1424149
 
Pork producers consider euthanizing hogs due to financial losses sparked by coronavirus


By Mitti Hicks | Fox News
Pork farmers consider killing pigs due to financial strains from COVID-19

DES MOINES, Iowa – From exports to wholesaling and grocery stores, pork farmers across the country have profited over $20 billion per year from pigs – but they’ve needed to make tough decisions recently, like many industries that have fallen victim to the coronavirus.

“All of us in agriculture have been asked to keep working despite everything that’s going on with the coronavirus,” Mike Paustian, the president of the Iowa Pork Producers Association, told Fox News. “Everyone recognizes that we need to keep food moving.”

......

“One of the reasons that the price for pigs is so low right now is because there’s been this disruption in how food moves to consumers,” Paustian said. “With restaurants being shut down we have a lot less business. About 70 percent of bacon is consumed in restaurants and food service.”

Another looming issue: The supply of pigs has exceeded the demand and as the animals grow larger, they become too large for processing plants.
“When a pig is born, it's about two pounds, and in about six months it will grow to be about 280 pounds,” Paustian said. “That’s generally the size that a lot of pigs go to the market and so that becomes a challenge.”

Paustian added, “When we have a disruption like this, things start to back up and producers have to start to make accommodations because the welfare of our pigs [becomes] impacted. We have to do things like adjusting what we’re feeding them to try to slow them down and not get them to grow so fast.”

Making matters worse for pork producers: the struggle of helping to feed America while keeping their employees safe.

A Smithfield Foods plant, one of the nation’s largest pork-processing facilities in Sioux Falls, S.D., closed after more than 600 confirmed coronavirus cases were tied to the plant.

Companies such as Christiansen Farms, which operates more than 400 farms and processing plants across the country, have announced that even with mitigation processes, including social distancing and temperature checks for employees, they were preparing to make tough decisions.

“Some of the worst-case scenarios are quite honestly, pretty disturbing,” Christensen Farms CEO Glenn Stolt said. “If plants go down and we're not able to take full-grown animals to the plants, we have to look at alternative measures, including potential euthanasia, which is not something that any one of us in agriculture even thinks about doing.”
......
.......:tiphat:https://www.foxnews.com/us/pork-prod...navirus-losses
 
County Officials See COVID-19 Surge From Waterloo Meat Packing Plant; Governor Won't Close It

By KATE PAYNE, NATALIE KREBS & KATARINA SOSTARIC • 23 MINUTES AGO
  • Gov. Kim Reynolds has said there is a suspected COVID-19 outbreak at the Tyson plant in Waterloo. The Black Hawk County health director says about 150 of the plant's workers have tested positive.
Gov. Kim Reynolds said Monday she will not order the Tyson hog processing facility in Waterloo to close, after some Democratic state lawmakers called for a temporary shutdown to protect workers from becoming infected with COVID-19.

As of Monday, the state has confirmed two outbreaks in meat processing facilities: the National Beef-owned plant in Tama, and the Tyson plant in Columbus Junction that have affected hundreds of workers. State officials have said they consider more than 10 percent of employees at a business showing COVID-19 symptoms to be an outbreak.

Reynolds has said there is a "suspected outbreak" at the Tyson plant in Waterloo, and state officials have declined to say how many COVID-19 cases are linked to that facility.

But local officials have said at least 150 cases in Black Hawk County are linked to the plant....:tiphat:https://www.iowapublicradio.org/post...se-it#stream/0
 
COVID-19 cases in one Wisconsin county explode to 292, clusters tied to meatpacking plants

Doug Schneider, Haley BeMiller and Nusaiba Mizan, Green Bay Press-Gazette
Published 5:47 p.m. CT April 20, 2020
GREEN BAY - Brown County officials are investigating a cluster of coronavirus infections linked to an east-side meatpacking plant after the county's total number of confirmed cases climbed to nearly 300 over the weekend.

The county on Monday reported 292 cases, an increase of 119 since Friday, along with five in the Oneida Nation. Half the new cases reported in Wisconsin since Sunday involve Brown County residents.

The weekend surge came after Brown County officials called in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help investigate an explosion of cases in the Green Bay area.
The recent spike includes a cluster of cases at the JBS Packerland meatpacking facility at 1330 Lime Kiln Road, Shove said. The number of cases from the plant is unknown. Shove said the CDC will assist with contact tracing to determine how many people were infected...:tiphat:https://www.argusleader.com/story/ne...ed/5168963002/
 
60 coronavirus cases, 1 death at Plainwell meat plant Today 5:05 PM

By Lindsay Moore | [email]lmoore@mlive.com[/email]
PLAINWELL, MI -- The coronavirus has swept through JBS meatpacking plants across the country, and the location in Plainwell is no exception.

On Monday, April 17, the Plainwell plant had 60 positive cases and one death among workers, according to Allegan County health officials and confirmed by a spokesperson for the union representing plant employees...:tiphat:https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo...eat-plant.html
 
Another pork plant closes as US pork industry faces "dismal" COVID-19 support from government


JBS USA said on Monday (20 April) it would indefinitely shut a hog slaughterhouse that processes around 5 percent of US pork in the latest disruptions to the North American food supply chain from the coronavirus pandemic.

by The Pig Site
21 April 2020, at 10:23am
JBS said it is closing a pork production facility in Worthington, Minnesota, that employs more than 2,000 workers and processes 20,000 hogs per day. It advised plant employees to follow a state order to stay at home to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, until the facility in Nobles County reopens.

"It is clear that the disease is far more widespread across the US and in our county than official estimates indicate based on limited testing," Bob Krebs, president of JBS USA Pork, said in a statement.


The JBS closure limits the amount of meat the United States can produce for consumers during the outbreak and adds stress on farmers who are already losing a market for their pigs.

The US government has deemed agricultural workers to be essential during the pandemic because they are responsible for maintaining the country's food supply. The Worthington facility will wind down operations over the next two days with a reduced staff so pork that is already in the facility can be "used to support the food supply," Brazilian-owned JBS said.

Rivals Tyson Foods Inc and WH Group Ltd's Smithfield Foods have already closed pork plants due to outbreaks of the contagious respiratory virus among employees. JBS and National Beef Packing Company have shut beef plants.

Meat companies have struggled as workers have stayed home out of fear of contracting the virus at plants, despite efforts by processors to promote social distancing.

"When COVID-19 is prevalent in the community, fear is heightened, absenteeism rises and the challenge of keeping the virus out becomes greater," JBS said. "When absenteeism levels become too high, facilities cannot safely operate."...:tiphat:https://thepigsite.com/news/2020/04/...rom-government
 
Meatpacking facilities and the supply chain being affected by coronavirus


By: Mike Pelton
Posted at 4:51 PM, Apr 21, 2020
and last updated 7:51 PM, Apr 21, 2020
Getting pork and beef to the meat counter could become a tougher task, experts say, as COVID-19 weighs on the supply chain.

In recent weeks, several meat processing plants across the country have temporarily closed as workers fell ill with coronavirus. On Monday, JBS USA announced the closure of a pork production facility in Minnesota.

Experts are keeping an eye on the number of plants affected across the country.

"If it's a 10% closure, we've heard some of those percentage numbers, than we're talking about anywhere from eight-to-ten million pounds of pork that is no longer in that food supply chain," said Julie Murphree, the outreach director for the Arizona Farm Bureau...:tiphat:https://www.abc15.com/news/state/mea...by-coronavirus
 
Coronavirus: Smithfield Foods plant in Tar Heel confirmed to have COVID-19 outbreak

April 21, 2020 Bladen Journal News, Top Stories 0
By: Alan Wooten - Bladen Journal
wAAACH5BAEKAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAICRAEAOw==
​

TAR HEEL — The world’s largest pork production plant has an outbreak of COVID-19.

The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services said Tuesday the plant is one of five such cases in the state. DHHS did not name any of the facilities, only the counties; a coronavirus case at Smithfield was confirmed Saturday by the Bladen County Health Department.

It is unclear how many Smithfield employees have been infected, or the counties in which they live. DHHS defines an outbreak as two or more. The company employs an estimated 4,400 to 5,000 and draws from Bladen and surrounding counties to fill those positions.

The other outbreaks at food processing facilities are in Robeson, Duplin, Lee and Chatham counties.

Smithfield Foods has yet to answer questions of how many positive cases of coronavirus are known to be linked to the plant, and what the company has done to protect workers before and since learning of the first case.

A joint press release issued Tuesday by DHSS with the N.C. Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services says the Bladen County Health Department, plant managers at Smithfield, corporate owners, community health centers and Bladen County Hospital “are working together to keep workers safe and to help ensure the world’s food supply remains stable.”

....
Bladen County’s statistics with DHHS indicate four positive cases of COVID-19 thus far, and one of those has recovered. One was reassigned from another county on Saturday and is not a Smithfield employee, Dr. Terri Duncan of the Health Department confirmed.

The most recent two were added to the count Monday night. It is not known if they have connection to the Smithfield plant.

......
The plant on N.C. 87 just south of the Cumberland County line processes approximtely 30,000 to 35,000 hogs a day.

A Smithfield plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, was reported to have 438 positive cases of COVID-19 last week. It had halted production on April 12 due to the outbreak. Other plants in Cudahy, Wisconsin, and Martin City, Missouri, were dependent on the Sioux Falls slaughterhouse and were closed as well.
:tiphat:https://www.bladenjournal.com/news/3...id-19-outbreak
 
Union says staff at 2nd Alberta meat plant scared of COVID-19, not showing up to work

BY BILL GRAVELAND THE CANADIAN PRESS

Updated April 21, 2020 5:15 pm JBS Canada Union says staff at 2nd Alberta meat plant scared of COVID-19, not showing up to work

JBS Canada beef processing plant in Brooks, Alberta deals with COVID-19.
  • A union representing workers at a southern Alberta meat-packing plant says some staff don’t feel safe because of an outbreak of COVID-19 at the facility, and they aren’t showing up for work.
The president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union 401 said JBS Canada has been paying a shift premium of $4 an hour for workers at its plant in Brooks. But it’s not enough.

“It didn’t get people to come into work. In fact, we hear that 500 to 1,000 workers haven’t shown up and they’ve had to reduce production to one shift,” Thomas Hesse said Tuesday.

“They cancelled the entire second shift and they’re merging the shifts simply because they don’t have the workers.,,,:tiphat:https://globalnews.ca/news/6848023/j...ovid-19-union/
.
 
Calgary
Brooks meat plant slows but remains open as dozens of COVID-19 cases confirmed

JBS processing facility drops to 1 shift a day after Cargil closes its plant in High River due to pandemic

CBC News ? Posted: Apr 21, 2020 1:46 PM

One day after a major meat-processing plant in High River, Alta., said it would shut down amidst a COVID-19 outbreak, another facility in the province that has dozens of cases among its employees says it is down to one shift due to "increased absenteeism" but will continue to operate.

​​The JBS plant in Brooks had 67 confirmed COVID-19 cases among its employees as of the Alberta government's update Monday afternoon but said Tuesday that no one has been laid off.

JBS said that it had implemented numerous preventative measures including temperature screening employees, mandatory face masks within the facility, increased cleaning and providing physical partitions on production lines.

"We will endeavour to keep our facilities open, but we will not operate a facility if we do not believe it is safe or if absenteeism levels results in our inability to safely operate," reads a statement from the company. ...:tiphat:https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...539958?cmp=rss
 
Texas investigating meat processing plants over coronavirus outbreaks


The Department of State Health Services is looking into outbreaks at JBS Beef in Moore County and Tyson Foods in Shelby County.

BY ALEXA URA APRIL 21, 20201 HOUR AGO
State health officials confirmed Tuesday that they are investigating an outbreak of the new coronavirus at the JBS Beef packing plant in the Texas Panhandle, part of ongoing efforts to monitor major meat processing plants as the pandemic continues to threaten food supply chains.

Earlier this month, the Department of State Health Services conducted an epidemiological investigation in Shelby County that identified a cluster of 14 coronavirus cases and two related deaths that were “in some manner” tied to employees of a Tyson Foods facility.

Now, a department spokeswoman said, an “environmental assessment team” is being sent to Moore County to advise on ways the massive meatpacking plant, which processes a significant portion of the nation’s beef, can curb the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new strain of the coronavirus....:tiphat:https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04...rus-outbreaks/
 
OHS inspection of Alberta meat plant now linked to 515 cases of COVID-19 was done by video call

Union is asking for an independent investigation, after hundreds of cases and worker's death

Sarah Rieger ? CBC News ? Posted: Apr 21, 2020 7:17 PM MT | Last Updated: 19 minutes ago

Days after dozens of cases of COVID-19 were confirmed at a meat plant in southern Alberta, an occupational health and safety investigation was done by video call, determining the plant was safe to stay open.

Now, just under one week after that call, one person is dead and 515 people sick with COVID-19 due to the outbreak at the Cargill facility near High River, and the union representing the plant's workers says it's time for an independent investigation.

The facility announced Monday it will temporarily shut down as soon as it has finished processing the meat already in the plant.
"It's very, very hard to specifically ascertain what's going on. They aren't allowing any visitors to the plant," said Thomas Hesse, president of UFCW Local 401....:tiphat:https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...539263?cmp=rss
 
Publisher’s Platform: We are having a problem with the U.S. meat supply

By Bill Marler
April 21, 2020
OPINION
You cannot slaughter animals without workers to do the work, and you cannot sell meat without inspectors.

We need to protect both workers and inspectors or we will see more plants shutter and our grocery stores empty.

Forcing workers and inspectors to work unprotected is not the answer.
According to the New York Times, there are about 800 federally inspected slaughterhouses in the United States, processing billions of pounds of meat for food stores each year. But a relatively small number of them account for the vast majority of production. In the cattle industry, a little more than 50 plants are responsible for as much as 98 percent of slaughtering and processing in the United States

More than a dozen beef, pork and chicken processing plants have closed or are running at greatly reduced speeds because of the pandemic. ..:tiphat:https://www.lexblog.com/2020/04/21/p...s-meat-supply/
 
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