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

[Treyfish]

Hundreds of Alberta infections linked to meat-processing plant

JAMES KELLER
CHRISTINE DOBBY
CORPORATE LAW REPORTER
CALGARY AND TORONTO
PUBLISHED APRIL 19, 2020
UPDATED 1 DAY AGO.

JEFF MCINTOSH/THE CANADIAN PRESS

High River has become a hot spot for COVID-19 in Alberta, with hundreds of infections, including staff at a long-term care home, tied to one of Canada’s largest slaughterhouses.

Health officials said that as of Friday, 358 cases in High River and elsewhere in the region were linked to the Cargill facility. Many of the workers at the Cargill Ltd. plant are new immigrants or temporary foreign workers, whose jobs and shared living spaces make them especially vulnerable to infection. At least one worker is on a ventilator, the union for the plant says, and others are struggling with serious illnesses.

Cargill is a major employer in High River, a bedroom community of roughly 13,000 people located a half-hour drive south of the Calgary city limits. About 2,000 people work there and the facility supplies about 40 per cent of the beef processed in Western Canada.

Foothills County now has more cases than Edmonton, a city with more than 10 times the population. The province’s Chief Medical Officer of Health has said that infections quickly spread among large households, and a local settlement agency said that temporary foreign workers often live together in large groups.


The Seasons High River retirement home, which includes nursing care, said five staff members tested positive but no residents have been infected. Four of the infected staff live with Cargill workers.

Thomas Hesse, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401, said many of the plant’s employees are either temporary foreign workers or new Canadians, for whom English is a second language, though he didn’t know how many would fit into those categories. He said some workers who have contracted COVID-19 are in serious condition, including one who is in an induced coma and on a ventilator in a Calgary hospital.

Mr. Hesse said North American meat-packing facilities “are designed around efficiency and social proximity, not social distancing.”

“The lines are arranged in highly efficient ways and workers stand shoulder to shoulder, wielding knives. It’s loud, it's slippery, it's wet and there’s blood everywhere, especially on the slaughter side [of the operation],” he said, adding, “The plant hallways and lunch rooms and bathrooms are a certain size and they’re not rebuilding the plants to confront COVID.”

The union and Alberta’s Opposition New Democrats have called for the plant to be temporarily shut down to get a handle on the outbreak, but so far that hasn’t happened.

A Cargill worker, who has been recovering at home since he and his spouse became sick and tested positive for COVID-19, said he is afraid to return without assurances from the company that the plant is safe. The Globe and Mail agreed not to identify the worker, who is worried that speaking publicly would jeopardize his job.

Employees at the plant work in close quarters as they slaughter 4,500 head of cattle a day....:tiphat:https://www.theglobeandmail.com/cana...ons-at-nearby/

 

[Treyfish]

Promises to test JBS employees in Greeley for COVID-19 from White House, management not kept

JBS meatpacking plant scheduled to reopen Friday
By: Tony Kovaleski
Posted at 8:44 PM, Apr 21, 2020

and last updated 10:44 PM, Apr 21, 2020

DENVER -- Contact7 Investigates has confirmed promises from the White House and JBS management to provide testing for employees at the massive meatpacking plant in Greeley have not been kept.

The information uncovered by Contact7 Investigates comes just three days before the plant is scheduled to reopen after it was forced to close on April 10.

The state of Colorado confirmed on Tuesday that at least 102 JBS employees have tested positive for COVID-19. Those numbers follow reports of four deaths of employees and sources have told Contact7 Investigates that two other employees are currently on ventilators fighting for their lives.

The outbreak at the JBS plant in Greeley went national on April 10 when Vice President Mike Pence discussed the concerns during a White House briefing.

“I spoke today with the Governor of Colorado, Jerod Polis, about an outbreak at a particular meat packing plant in the Colorado area, said Mike Pence during the news briefing. "The JBS plant in Greeley is one of the nations top producers of meat. It employs more than 6,000 people who speak more than 30 different languages and the facility slaughters about 5,400 cattle per day."

A full eleven days ago, the Vice President, speaking at a White House briefing, acknowledged the JBS outbreak and promised to help.

“Our team is working with the governor to ensure that we flow testing resources," Pence said.

On that very same day, JBS management issued a statement. It was the day the plant was shut down by state and county health directors siting the outbreak. The state of Colorado’s department of public health announced a two-week closure of the meatpacking plant demanding testing of all employees and sanitizing of the plant.

The statement from JBS management began with the headline, “COVID-19 TESTS FOR GREELEY BEEF TEAM MEMBERS.” The statement also included: “We are investing more than $1 million in COVID-19 testing kits for our team members.”

Now less than a week from the scheduled reopening of the plant, promises from the White House and JBS management have not been kept.

“We can only assume the reason they stopped testing is they don't want the numbers to come out, it’s bad PR,” said Sylvia Martinez, spokesperson for Latinos Unidos of Greeley.

Multiple informed sources confirmed to Contact7 Investigates that JBS management stopped testing shortly after it started on April 11 and well before its promise to test its 6,000 employees.

Insiders have told Contact7 Investigates that between 40% and 80% of managers/supervisors tested positive on the initial day of testing..:tiphat:https://www.thedenverchannel.com/new...ement-not-kept

 

[Treyfish]

COVID-19 Cases Now Tied to Meat Plants in Rural Texas Counties Wracked with Coronavirus

The outbreaks, which are being investigated by the state health agency, represent the first reported cases of the virus inside Texas meatpacking plants, and are in rural areas where medical resources are already stretched thin.
Christopher Collins and Sophie Novack
Apr 22, 2020, 10:33 pm CST

• A meatpacking plant in Deep East Texas appears to be connected to an outbreak of COVID-19 in a rural part of the state where the number of coronavirus cases has skyrocketed in recent weeks. The state health department is investigating cases at a Tyson poultry processing plant in Shelby County that may comprise a significant number of the county’s 69 confirmed cases. While meatpackers across the nation have been slammed with high numbers of coronavirus cases, leading to the deaths of workers and facility closures, this represents one of the first known outbreaks of the virus at a plant in Texas.

The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) has offered few details of its investigation into the outbreak at the Tyson facility on the Texas-Louisiana border. But Dr. Florencio Singson, who operates a clinic in Center, the county seat, told the Observer that health officials said the outbreak represents a “majority” of the county’s cases. Meanwhile, Tyson posted on its Facebook page that it is closing the facility this week. The post made no mention of the apparent outbreak, saying only that the company was installing new equipment at the plant.

Shelby County, population 25,400, has one of the highest per capita rates of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Texas. It’s nearly four times that of the state overall, and the highest countywide rate outside the Panhandle. Cases ballooned in Louisiana and into East Texas in recent weeks, with coronavirus now confirmed in nearly every Texas county in the region, many of which are rural and have limited medical resources. Many also have large populations of African Americans, who are being infected with and dying of coronavirus at disproportionately high rates.
......A DSHS spokesperson did not answer Observer questions about whether the agency is investigating potential outbreaks at other beef, pork, and poultry slaughterhouses in Texas. According to the Texas Tribune, DSHS is also investigating a COVID-19 outbreak at a JBS beef processing plant in Moore County in the Texas Panhandle. The county’s per capita rate of confirmed COVID-19 cases is about twice that of Shelby’s, and the second highest in the state. The companies have no responsibility to tell the general public when workers become infected; in fact, elsewhere in the nation, some meat plants continued to operate even as workers fell ill. At the Tyson plant in Center, it’s unclear when the first worker got sick and if the company changed its workplace procedures in response.

Though some meatpacking facilities are in urban and suburban areas, many are clustered in rural areas, places that experts have warned are particularly ill-equipped to deal with COVID-19 outbreaks. In Texas, more than one-fifth of the state’s 254 counties have just one doctor or none at all. At least 20 rural hospitals have closed since 2013—all in Eas........:tiphat:https://www.texasobserver.org/east-t...virus-chicken/

 

[Treyfish]

Second worker reportedly dead of coronavirus at South Dakota meat plant
April 21, 2020

A second worker from a Sioux Falls, South Dakota meat processing plant has died of coronavirus, as the plant becomes a major virus hotspot.:tiphat:https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/s...nt-82371141644

 

[Treyfish]

Will There Be A Meat Shortage Because Of The Coronavirus?

Meat plant shutdowns and panic buying during the pandemic threaten to result in shortages at grocery stores. Experts tell us what to expect.
By
Garin Pirnia
04/22/2020 05:45am EDT

Since the coronavirus pandemic went full swing in March, shoppers in the United States have seen empty grocery shelves and have read about farmers dumping their milk and destroying produce because of a dearth of buyers.

More than a week ago, Smithfield Foods, one of the largest pork processors in the U.S., shut down its Sioux Falls, South Dakota, plant after more than 230 employees tested positive for COVID-19 and two people died. (Smithfield’s plants in North Carolina, Wisconsin and Missouri also reported that employees had tested positive and have shut down.)

Many other meat processing plants — including Tyson, JBS and Cargill — have also temporarily shut down in cities across the U.S. and in Canada (some of Tyson’s plants have opted not to shut down despite having sick employees) and several more deaths have occurred. Reports surfaced that the shutdown, coupled with panic buying, will result in meat shortages.

So, will it actually be difficult for consumers to buy meat soon? Experts advise there’s no need to panic. Let’s take a look at how grocery store shelves may look in the near future.
Even if your grocery store is low on meat, there’s likely a surplus of meat at farms.


The real problem right now is that the U.S. has too much meat but nowhere to send it.

“I don’t see any shortage in meat,” Mike Phillips, co-owner and salumiere of Minneapolis’ Red Table Meat Co., told HuffPost. “In fact, it’s the other way around, especially for the farmers I work with. They can’t get rid of enough. They’re worried they’re going to go bankrupt. They have a lot of money [invested] in feeding animals and nowhere for them to go.”
....

Not only is there nowhere for the meat to go, but in many cases there’s also no mode of transportation to get it there.

Ron Joyce is president and CEO of the North Carolina-based family-owned Joyce Farms. He said the media has fueled a panic-buying mentality and that, in his experience, the real problem of grocery store shortages has to do with transportation issues.
....

“I think America has the ability to produce the meat we need overall, but there could be short-term and/or regional shortages due to logistics and plants being closed,” Joyce said.
How grocery stores are affected.


On the grocery side, many stores have been able to keep up with meat demand, for the most part. One such chain is Whole Foods.

“Since we work with a variety of local and regional suppliers all over the country, it allows us to be more flexible with supply source and safely move inventory as needed to combat possible shortages,” Theo Weening, Whole Foods’ vice president of meat and poultry, told HuffPost.

“Specific product availability and replenishment in-store varies across the country based on a number of factors, such as shopper habits and supplier outages,” Weening said. “However, both our local and regional supplier partnerships, which meet our rigorous quality standards, have provided us with opportunities to be flexible and bypass interruptions to supply chains where possible, getting product to stores as quickly as we can.”

Another fear is that meat prices will increase at grocery stores because of supply and demand. But there’s not too much cause for concern, according to the experts.
........
Why a meat shortage at grocery stores is unlikely.


Despite what appears to be a temporary shortage in supply chains, consumer relief is on the way. “Producers and retailers typically plan for steady demand increases and were not prepared to deal with the rapid surge we saw with the onset of the crisis,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture wrote on its blog. “But over the next few weeks, as retailers restock their shelves and demand from overstocked consumers declines, we will see fewer empty shelves and prices should stabilize or even decline.”

Additionally, the USDA announced that “in both commercial and public storage, the U.S. has stockpiled 925 million pounds of frozen chicken, 491 million pounds of frozen beef and nearly 662 million pounds of frozen pork,” and the federal government announced that it plans to purchase some of the farmers’ surplus meat and give $16 billion in direct payment to farmers. So it seems like a shortage might be overblown.
How do we prevent a meat shortage in the future?


.......:tiphat:https://www.huffpost.com/entry/meat-...URjFgfB2_9wUcD

 

[Treyfish]

Smithfield's Pork Plant In South Dakota Reopens, Wisconsin Branch Remains Closed
.....

According to Fortune, a company spokesperson of Smithfield Foods announced that three of its meat processing facilities were closed in recent weeks to abide by preventive measures imposed by the US government to contain the pandemic. ....
Last April 12, the company shut down a meat processing facility in South Dakota after the pandemic infected 700 of its employees. Two days after the closure, the company also shut down two of its meat processing facilities in Wisconsin and Missouri since the closure of the South Dakota plant adversely affected its supply chain.

....

He claimed that the US has pushed perilously against the terms of the country's meat supply and that grocery stores cannot stock up efficiently after the closures. The said closures were also referred to as disastrous repercussions for many meat processing plants in the supply chain. He claimed that the move would also adversely affect US livestock farmers since they would lose partners that would purchase their livestock.

He added that the pandemic is afflicting communities across the country and that numerous plants already have infected employees. Hence, he said that it continued operations before the closure was mandated to sustain the US food supply amid the pandemic. Sullivan also emphasized that it is the company and similar entities to help feed the country during a trying time.:tiphat:https://www.btimesonline.com/article...ins-closed.htm

 

[Treyfish]

Coronavirus invading N.C. meat processing plants

April 22, 2020 by Greg Barnes
Five processing plants, including the mammoth Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Tar Heel, are experiencing outbreaks of the coronavirus, state health officials say.By Greg Barnes


Additional contributions by Enlace Latino NC staff

It didn’t take long for the coronavirus to sweep through a Smithfield Foods plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

On March 26, the plant announced its first case of COVID-19. By April 13, more than 300 workers had tested positive. Today the plant is considered the largest coronavirus hot spot in the nation with nearly 900 cases linked directly to Smithfield Foods.

Fourteen hundred miles away in Tar Heel, North Carolina, it was reported over the weekend that an employee at the nation’s largest hog-slaughtering plant had tested positive for the coronavirus.

...
In North Carolina, the outbreak of the virus hasn’t been confined only to Smithfield. The state announced in a news release Tuesday that five hog and poultry processing plants have confirmed two or more cases of the virus; in Bladen, Lee, Chatham, Duplin and Robeson counties. The state considers two or more cases at a plant an outbreak.

The state Department of Health and Human Services, which issued the news release, declined in a subsequent email to name the plants with outbreaks or how many cases each plant has reported. The department would say only that 118 people have tested positive for the coronavirus at the five plants.

In response to the outbreak, state health and agricultural officials have developed interim guidelines in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus in the state’s 200 processing plants. The new guidelines are in addition to those already established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the news release said.
Workers aren’t the only ones threatened


Only time will tell if the new guidelines can stop the virus’ spread in the processing plants. But if the Smithfield plant in South Dakota provides any clues, it may already be too late.

At a Mountaire Farms chicken processing plant in Siler City, employees were notified on April 13 that three of their co-workers had tested positive for COVID-19.

Ilana Dubester, an advocate for Hispanic workers at Mountaire, said the plant’s spokesman Mark Reif told her Saturday that 11 employees had tested positive.

Neither Mountaire nor the Chatham County Health Department would confirm that number or say how many employees have contracted the virus since then. They said it was a matter of protecting employees’ privacy rights. According to state records, Chatham County had 131 confirmed cases of the virus on Tuesday, up from 127 the day before.

The virus is not only threatening workers at the processing plants, if its spread is not contained it could eventually threaten the nation’s supply of meat and poultry, said Rob Handfield, a distinguished professor of operations and supply chain management at N.C. State University.

The coronavirus could also threaten the livelihoods of North Carolina’s hog farmers, many of whom were facing an unsteady financial future long before the pandemic.
Mountaire’s response to the outbreak


Catherine Bassett, director of communications at Mountaire’s Delaware headquarters, said in an email that the company notified its Siler City plant employees about its first worker testing positive for the coronavirus the same day.

Dubester disputes that. Sh......

“When this pandemic started, Mountaire was doing nothing. They just started giving employees face masks/shields & putting up glass between people about 2 weeks ago,” the worker told N.C. Health News through Facebook’s messenger service. “The distance between people on the lines is literally elbow to elbow. The risk of the virus spreading in the company is extremely high because of this.”

The employee, who asked not to be named out of fear that she could lose her job, said she works on a deboning production line. She said about half of the workers in her department have stopped showing up regularly to work, herself included, out of concern that they could get the virus.

“It’s scary,” she said. “I’m putting my life at risk going to work and Mountaire is only worried about profit from their chicken.”

........
It’s been 10 days since that plant closed, putting workers out of jobs and threatening to wreak economic havoc on the state’s independent hog farmers, about 550 of whom are under contract with Smithfield Foods. Smithfield, South Dakota’s governor and the CDC are working to negotiate an agreement on how the plant could reopen. It sounded Tuesday as if the agreement was close to being reached.North Carolina is home to roughly 8.6 million farmed pigs.
With the slaughterhouse closed, farmers have few if any options to take their hogs to market. If the plant doesn’t reopen soon, some farmers may have to start killing their hogs, said Glenn Muller, executive director of the South Dakota Pork Producers Council.

“That’s a last-case resort, and I think every day we get closer to that point,” Muller said on Monday. “We’re hoping for a bright spot, some agreement that can be made… but every day becomes a little more critical.”

Zering, the N.C. State professor, said he is not aware of any hogs in the U.S. having to be euthanized. But he understands how it could happen.

“Since pigs are 5 to 6 months old when they go to market and are conceived 9 to 10 months before they go to market, it is difficult in the short term to reduce the number of pigs reaching market age,” Zering said in an email.

Now, in both North Carolina and South Dakota, hog farmers are worried about bankruptcy.

“It’s a tremendous financial and emotional strain on our producers right at this point in time and we’re very concerned about their financial and mental well-being,” Muller said.
:tiphat:https://www.northcarolinahealthnews....essing-plants/

 

[Treyfish]

:tiphat:https://www.just-food.com/news/covid...paign=rss-feed

 

[Treyfish]

Coronavirus at meat packing plants worse than first thought, USA TODAY investigation finds

Kyle Bagenstose, Sky Chadde and Matt Wynn,
USA TODAY
Published 9:25 a.m. CT
April 22, 2020
Iowa Department of Public Health reporting another 482 positive tests for COVID-19 Des Moines Register
Coronavirus closed Smithfield and JBS meat packing plants. Many more are at risk. Operators may have to choose worker health or meat in stores.


A rash of coronavirus outbreaks at dozens of meat packing plants across the nation is far more extensive than previously thought, according to an exclusive review of cases by USA TODAY and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.

And it could get worse. More than 150 of America’s largest meat processing plants operate in counties where the rate of coronavirus infection is already among the nation’s highest, based on the media outlets’ analysis of slaughterhouse locations and county-level COVID-19 infection rates.

These facilities represent more than 1 in 3 of the nation’s biggest beef, pork and poultry processing plants. Rates of infection around these plants are higher than those of 75% of other U.S. counties, the analysis found.



And while experts say the industry has thus far maintained sufficient production despite infections in at least 2,200 workers at 48 plants, there are fears that the number of cases could continue to rise and that meat packing plants will become the next disaster zones.

"Initially our concern was long-term care facilities," said Gary Anthone, Nebraska's chief medical officer, in a Facebook Live video on Sunday. “If there's one thing that might keep me up at night, it's the meat processing plants and the manufacturing plants."
.......n their own to ensure an outbreak doesn’t spread across their factory floors.

Factory workers, unions, and even managers say the federal government — including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration — has done little more than issue non-enforceable guidance. On its website, for example, the CDC has released safety guidelines for critical workers and businesses, which primarily promote common sense measures of sanitization and personal distancing.
......
But rather than increase safety and oversight, the U.S. Department of Agriculture relaxed it in the midst of the pandemic. Just this month, the agency allowed 15 poultry plants to exceed federal limits on how many birds workers can process in a minute.

That’s more than in any previous month in the waiver program’s history. Several worker protection agencies have found that increasing line speeds causes more injuries.

And it could lead to more infections, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union said in a statement: “These waivers guarantee that workers are more crowded along a meatpacking line and more workers are put at risk of either catching or spreading the virus.”

Most of the plants that received waivers are owned by Tyson Foods and Wayne Farms, according to a department record. One of them — a Wayne Farms facility in Albertville, Alabama — disclosed this week that 75 of its workers tested positive and one died. The plant will slow production to improve safety, it told AL.com.

......
“At all locations we’re working to educate our team members and reinforce the importance of social distancing, wearing protective facial coverings and frequent hand washing outside of work as well,” he said. “This is especially important in locations where there is community spread occurring.”

Tyson reopened its Columbus Junction, Iowa plant on Tuesday after having closed it April 6 to contain the outbreak. The company announced Wednesday that it would indefinitely suspend operations at its Waterloo pork processing plant this week.


But meat processing workers elsewhere remain fearful for their safety.

A 50-year-old employee named John at Smithfield’s Sioux Falls plant told USA TODAY that there’s no way to stay six feet apart from coworkers on the production line, in the cafeteria or in the locker room. The employee asked to use only his first name for fear that speaking out would cost him his job.

As people around him at the plant became infected with COVID-19, John said, he started feeling sick and went to get his temperature checked, thinking he needed to leave. But he was stopped, he said.

“They told me I was OK and I needed to work,” said John, who has worked at the plant for a decade. “I said nope, and I came home.”

In early April, he learned he had tested positive for COVID-19.

“Those people don’t care about us,” John said. “If you die, they’ll just replace you tomorrow.”
Plants close, production plummets


By the time it closed its doors on April 12, Smithfield’s Sioux Falls plant had more than 200 confirmed cases of COVID-19. In the days since then, the case count has swelled to nearly 900, including workers and those they’ve interacted with, making it the biggest single cluster of COVID-19 infections in the nation.

CDC employees are touring the plant to develop a reopening plan expected to be released this week.

........
But OSHA and the CDC weren’t part of those discussions, Young said.

“OSHA did not issue any orders or directives,” Young said, “nor did they ramp up inspections or enforcement.”

Instead, he said several companies voluntarily agreed to make changes, such as placing barriers between employees, issuing personal protective equipment, and instructing managers to enforce proper personal distance.

Those measures led to a scheduled re-opening of the Souderton JBS plant on Monday, but Wendell said workers have nothing but the company’s word that the changes will continue.,,,,,
:tiphat:https://www.desmoinesregister.com/st...bs/3002446001/

 

[Treyfish]

Tyson Foods Suspends Operations at Its Largest Pork Plant, Warns of 'Significant Ramifications' to Supply Chain


Jeff Reinitz—The Courier/AP
BY RYAN J. FOLEY / AP

APRIL 22, 2020 3:08 PM EDT

(IOWA CITY, Iowa) — Tyson Foods suspended operations Wednesday at an Iowa plant that is critical to the nation’s pork supply but was blamed for fueling a coronavirus outbreak in the community.

The Arkansas-based company said the closure of the plant in Waterloo would deny a vital market to hog farmers and further disrupt U.S. meat supply. Tyson had kept the facility, its largest pork plant, open in recent days over the objections of alarmed local officials.

The plant can process 19,500 hogs per day, accounting for 3.9% of U.S. pork processing capacity, according to the National Pork Board.

More than 180 infections have been linked to the plant and officials expect that number to dramatically rise. Testing of its 2,800 workers is expected to begin Friday. Cases and hospitalizations in Black Hawk County have skyrocketed in recent days and local officials say the plant is the largest source of infections......

Tyson Fresh Meats president Steve Stouffer said the closure in Iowa was driven by “the combination of worker absenteeism, COVID-19 cases and community concerns.” He warned of “significant ramifications” for the farmers, distributors and grocers in the supply chain.....:tiphat:https://time.com/5825704/tyson-foods...g-coronavirus/

 

[Treyfish]

Tyson president says closing of largest pork plant will have ‘significant ramifications’ for industry

Today 2:59 PM
By Brandon Champion | [email]bchampio@mlive.com[/email]
Tyson is closing its largest pork plant, a decision that will have “significant ramifications” for the industry and create “further disruption of the nation’s pork supply,” according to its president.

The Tyson Fresh Meats facility in Waterloo, Iowa will indefinitely suspend operations mid-week until further notice due to the coronavirus. It already been running at reduced levels of production due to worker absence.
Tyson Fresh Meats is the beef and pork subsidiary of Tyson Foods, Inc. The facility’s 2,800 team members will be invited to come to the plant later this week for COVID-19 testing.....
“The closure has significant ramifications beyond our company, since the plant is part of a larger supply chain that includes hundreds of independent farmers, truckers, distributors and customers, including grocers,” Stouffer said. “It means the loss of a vital market outlet for farmers and further contributes to the disruption of the nation’s pork supply.”....:tiphat:https://www.mlive.com/news/2020/04/t...-industry.html

 

[Treyfish]

BUSINESS

Coronavirus: Next shortage at the grocery store? Meat

Tyson Foods on Tuesday said it?s idling its largest pork plant, making it at least the sixth major U.S. meat facility to shutter in the last few weeks.

UPDATED: April 22, 2020 at 12:27 p.m.

Shoppers, you’ve got two weeks to stock up on meat, and prices are rising fast.

Why? More U.S. slaughterhouses are being forced to close as workers get sick with COVID-19.

“Meat shortages will be occurring two weeks from now in the retail outlets,” Dennis Smith, a senior account executive at Archer Financial Services, said, citing industry sources. “There is simply no spot pork available. The big-box stores will get their needs met, many others will not.”

Tyson Foods on Tuesday said it’s idling its largest pork plant, making it at least the sixth major U.S. meat facility to shutter in the last few weeks. Currently, about 15% of hog-slaughtering capacity is completely offline, and there are also additional slowdowns at pork, beef and poultry companies across the nation.

Meat prices are starting to surge on the disruptions. But with slaughterhouses closing, farmers don’t have a market for their animals. That’s causing hog futures to drop, potentially creating a situation where pigs get euthanized and buried as supplies back up. Meanwhile, retail costs may rise as grocery stores mandate rationing on pork chops.

Things are so dire that Iowa, the biggest hog state, activated the National Guard to help protect supplies.

Much has been made of the frozen inventories that are kept in warehouses, which could help cushion the blow of plant closures — as long as they don’t last very long. While there are hundreds of millions of pounds of frozen meat in U.S. warehouses, the supplies account for only a fraction of what’s typically produced in any given month.

“For all the talk of cold-storage supplies, it’s just never a lot,” Bob Brown, an independent market consultant in Edmond, Oklahoma, said by telephone of supplies of pork, beef and poultry. “It’s roughly a week’s worth of production in the freezer.”...:tiphat:https://www.ocregister.com/2020/04/2...ry-store-meat/

 

[Treyfish]

U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

hour ago (Apr 22, 2020 04:36PM ET)
1
? Reuters. U.S. Reels to a Meat Shortage and Prices Are Getting Weird

(Bloomberg) -- The clock is ticking for the U.S. to avoid a meat shortage as sick workers force more slaughterhouses to shut down.

...

“Meat shortages will be occurring two weeks from now in the retail outlets,” Dennis Smith, a senior account executive at Archer Financial Services, said, citing industry sources. “There is simply no spot pork available. The big box stores will get their needs met, many others will not.”

.....

Shutdowns haven’t been limited to the U.S.

Almost half of Canada’s beef-processing capacity has been halted after a closure for Cargill Inc. this week in Alberta. A JBS plant in the province has also slowed production. Many ranchers in the region have been left with nowhere to sell their cattle. Canada exports about 50% of its beef.

“The solution, of course, is to make sure the plants can be back up and running as soon as possible,” Marie-France MacKinnon, spokeswoman for the Canadian Meat Council, said in an email.:tiphat:https://www.investing.com/news/commo...-weird-2148278

 

[Treyfish]

More than 95% Canada’s beef comes from 3 processing plants. Two of them have COVID-19 outbreaks


By Alex Ballingall
Ottawa Bureau
Wed., April 22, 2020
OTTAWA—The coronavirus pandemic is exposing the risk of relying on a few industrial slaughterhouses for a huge portion of Canada’s beef supply, according to food experts and a national farmers’ union.

More than 95 per cent of Canada’s beef production comes from just three processing plants, the National Farmers Union says. Two of them have been hit by COVID-19 outbreaks, including a massive plant in Alberta that shut down Monday with no estimated date of return.

Ian Robson, a board member with the union who raises cattle on his farm in Deleau, Man., said this could have a major impact. When a big processor shuts down, shock waves roll through the beef supply chain that increase consumer prices and force ranchers to take losses because they can’t sell cattle, he said.

“You can’t eat the beef until it’s killed and processed,” Robson said. “And if the killing capacity..:tiphat:https://www.thestar.com/politics/fed...outbreaks.html

 

[Treyfish]

Tyson Fresh Meats and Cass County, Ind., Health Department Issue Joint Statement

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April 22, 2020 18:00 ET | Source: Tyson Foods, Inc.

Company temporarily closes its Logansport facility, while working closely with Cass County health officials to help keep team members and the community safe during the COVID-19 global health pandemic

SPRINGDALE, Ark., April 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc., the beef and pork subsidiary of Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE: TSN), announced today that its Logansport, Ind., facility will voluntarily close while its more than 2,200 team members undergo testing. The company is working closely with the Cass County Health Department to conduct COVID-19 testing beginning as early as tomorrow.

The pork processing facility, which produces three million pounds of pork daily and helps support more than 250 independent family farmers from across nine states, suspended production for one day on April 20 for additional deep cleaning and sanitizing. Since then, the facility has been running at limited production and is expected to stop production on or before Saturday, April 25.

“While we understand the necessity of keeping our facilities operational so that we can continue to feed the nation, the safety of our team members remains our top priority,” said Steve Stouffer, group president of Tyson Fresh Meats. “Our company is deeply embedded in our plant communities, including Logansport. We’re working with the county to make sure our people and the community are safe. The combination of worker absenteeism, COVID-19 cases and community concerns has resulted in a collective decision to close.”

Affected Logansport team members will continue to be compensated while the plant is closed. Resumption of operations will depend on a variety of factors, including the outcome of team member testing for COVID-19. Tyson Fresh Meats is working with the county health department on plans to re-open as quickly as possible.

“We’re pleased with Tyson’s collaboration to protect our community,” said Dr. Dori Ditty, health officer of Cass County Health Department. “Tyson Fresh Meats is an economic anchor for our community and is critical for the food supply. We want to get the facility back up and running as safely and quickly as possible, which is why we’ve both decided to close the facility in order to test all employees.

“We’re aware that while employees are practicing protective measures at work, they may not be practicing it at home which is critical to help stop overall community spread,” Ditty said. “Tyso...:tiphat:https://www.globenewswire.com/news-r...Statement.html

 

[Treyfish]

Worker from JBS meat packing plant near Brooks dies with COVID-19 test pending

BY HEATHER YOUREX-WEST GLOBAL NEWS
Posted April 22, 2020 7:14 pm

Provincial health officials confirmed Wednesday that a worker from the JBS meat packing plant near Brooks, Alta., has died while awaiting results from a COVID-19 test.

“There are two additional deaths in Brooks in people with COVID (tests) pending, one of those was a worker at the JBS plant site,” said Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta Chief Medical Officer of Health.

Hinshaw said there are now 96 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among workers at the plant.
In a statement to Global News, JBS spokesperson Cameron Bruett said the Brooks facility will remain open to continue to provide food for the country.

“We will not operate a facility if we do not believe it is safe. We are working diligently to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and have adopted enhanced safety measures, health protocols and worker benefits to keep our workplaces, team members and products safe,” Bruett said.

“We’re certain that the transmission is happening outside the plant at an exponential rate as compared to in, because we don’t have any confirmed transmission within the plant from a worker being with another worker,” Brooks Mayor Barry Morishita said on Wednesday. “They take extreme caution and I think they’ve been doing a good job there.”
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The union representing workers at the JBS plant is calling on the company to shut down the facility for two weeks.


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“What we’re asking for is a consistent approach when we do have a positive find in a plant,” national president of the Agriculture Union Fabian Murphy said. “We think that the 14 day shutdown period will allow for the incubation period to determine who is healthy enough to go back to work.”

“I think we’re up to six plants that have been affected by COVID now in Canada and in most cases, worker mobility was a huge issue,” said Sylvain Charlebois, director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University.

“Its very difficult to implement physical distancing measures when everyone is in a bus or everyone is carpooling and there are some immigrant workers living together as well.”....:tiphat:https://globalnews.ca/news/6854858/j...es-covid-test/

 

[Treyfish]

B.C. premier tells workers to stay home if sick after COVID-19 outbreak at chicken plant

By The Canadian Press
Wed., April 22, 2020

VICTORIA—B.C. Premier John Horgan says people who are sick must stay away from work after an outbreak of COVID-19 at a chicken processing plant in Vancouver.

Horgan said Wednesday workers should not go to work when they are sick because they fear losing wages, and that he was planning a meeting with Labour Minister Harry Bains and WorkSafeBC officials to discuss sick pay provisions.

Horgan said health investigators arrived at the United Poultry Co. Ltd. plant on Monday after one worker tested positive for COVID-19 and discovered more than two dozen other employees had the disease....:tiphat:https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2...ken-plant.html

 

[Treyfish]

Tuesday, April 21

7:15 p.m.

Hormel Foods and Jennie-O confirms there have been positive cases of COVID-19 diagnosed among employees at its Jennie-O plant in Willmar.

"As team members are impacted by COVID-19, we are doing what’s right and that includes quarantining and ensuring all close contacts are identified and also quarantined, as well as transparent communication with our team members, including translating communications into multiple languages. All impacted team members continue to receive 100 percent of pay and benefits while they are away from work," Hormel and Jennie-O said in a statement. "We will also be transparent and report any possible closures of facilities due to deep cleaning or staffing issues that may be caused by COVID-19. We are not reporting individual cases as we have found that the situations in our communities are changing daily."


Jennie-O said production facilities are continuing to operate "with minimal disruption to our supply chain."

"The company’s team of inspired people is working to ensure a consistent and steady food supply during this crisis," the statement read.
https://www.kare11.com/article/news/...9-af4149e4e91d
Jennie-O did not reveal the exactt number of cases at the Willmar plant. The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) listed 3 lab-confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Kandiyohi County as of April 21.

The reports of coronavirus cases involving Jennie-O workers follows reports of several confirmed COVID-19 cases at a JBS pork processing plant in Worthington, Minn., which closed operations this week.
:tiphat:

 

[Treyfish]

‘Shortages Will Be Occurring’: Coronavirus Disrupting Meat Supply Chain

April 23, 2020 at 1:41 pm
Filed


WATERLOO, Iowa (CBS Local) — As the coronavirus disrupts the meat supply chain, this might be a good time to stock up, experts say.

An explosion of COVID-19 cases is forcing some meat packing plants to shut down, further straining the U.S. meat supply chain and raising fears of potential shortages.
“Meat shortages will be occurring two weeks from now in the retail outlets,” Dennis Smith, a senior account executive at Archer Financial Services, tells Bloomberg. “There is simply no spot pork available. The big box stores will get their needs met, many others will not.”

.....:tiphat:https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020...-supply-chain/

 

[Treyfish]

One Hundred USDA Meat Inspectors Have Contracted Covid-19


Deena Shanker and Lydia Mulvany, Bloomberg News
(Bloomberg) --

One hundred U.S. Department of Agriculture inspectors have tested positive for the coronavirus as the illness ravages the nation’s meat processing plants.

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The infections among inspectors add to the growing concerns about the safety and viability of the nation’s meat supply after several major U.S. factories closed in recent weeks due to outbreaks. USDA inspectors need to be physically present in processing plants to make sure standards for cleanliness and worker protection are being met. Inspectors have been traveling between plants with known infections to other plants.

“.....
The agency “must maintain inspection of all meat, poultry, and egg products to ensure Americans continue to have a safe food supply during the evolving COVID-19 pandemic,”
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USDA inspectors should not have to be exposed to air-borne illness to protect the public from food-borne illness,” Michaels says. “The USDA and the meat industry are playing Russian roulette with the food chain -- what will happen if food inspectors start becoming infected and the remaining terrified inspectors refuse to work?”:tiphat:https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/one-hund...d-19-1.1425878