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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

THE SCALE OF THE PROBLEM

April 29, 2020
With numerous stories emerging about the the bottlenecks associated with the closure of meat packing plants, my sense is that many consumers and journalists have a hard time grasping the nature and scale of the problem. Here’s a little primer.

Poultry, hog, and to a somewhat lesser extent, cattle, production operate on a just-in-time basis. From the day a sow (a mama pig) becomes pregnant, a chain of events is set in motion that will result in a pig being sent to the packing plant in approximately 300 days. The well-orchestrated supply chain involves the coordination of many players operating in a timely manner. Once piglets are born, they move to a farrowing house for 3 weeks. Then, they are moved to another barn or farm in a nursey for 7 weeks. After that, hogs are moved again to growing or finishing barn for about 16 weeks. Check out this useful graphic from the National Pork Board.

If the finished pigs, who weigh a..:tiphat:http://jaysonlusk.com/blog/2020/4/29...of-the-problem
 
These are the meat plants in Canada affected by the coronavirus outbreak

Brooklyn NeustaeterCTVNews.ca Writer

@bneustaeter Contact

Published Wednesday, April 29, 2020 11:23AM EDT
Last Updated Wednesday, April 29, 2020 1:25PM EDT


Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the shutdown of meat plants in his daily public briefing on Wednesday, saying the federal government’s priority is ensuring those supply chains keep functioning and that its workers feel safe.

"The priority or the preoccupation and challenges we're facing isn't as much around safety of the food produced, which continues to be ensured, but the safety of the workers working in those plants because of COVID-19," Trudeau said. "That is something that requires a little more work and a little more co-ordination to ensure that we're keeping those workers safe, not just the food safe -- which is always a priority for us all."

Trudeau said the federal government is working "very closely" with the agricultural industry and provinces to ensure that meat plants continue to get food to Canadians while adhering to public health measures.

CTVNews.ca looks at which processing plants are seeing outbreaks and what the companies are doing to ensure Canada maintains a safe supply of meat.

CARGILL INC.

Cargill Inc. -- one of Alberta's largest meat processing plants -- shut down its plant in High River on April 20 after a 68-year-old woman who worked at the plant died from COVID-19.

As of Tuesday, there are now 759 cases of COVID-19 confirmed among workers at the Cargill plant. It's the largest outbreak linked to a single site in Canada.

;;;;
The Cargill plant processes about 4,500 head of cattle per day -- more than one-third of Canada's beef-processing capacity.


JBS CANADA


The JBS meat-packing plant in Brooks, Alta. has recorded 124 cases as of COVID-19 and one death as of Monday. The plant has reduced operations but remains open.

A petition has been launched calling for a temporary two-week shutdown of the facility to limit the spread of the virus, and for an inspection to ensure public health measures are being upheld.

JBS and Cargill make up 70 per cent of Canada's beef processing, according to the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA).
....

To cope with the backlog, Laycraft said producers are keeping cattle on feed for longer to slow ....their growth.
...

CONESTOGA MEATS
Pork processing plant Conestoga Meats in the Waterloo, Ont. region halted operations April 24 after seven of its employees tested positive for COVID-19. The plant will not be processing hogs for at least 7 days, resulting in limited staffing and operations. The company typically processes between 35,000 to 40,000 hogs a week
....

UNITED POULTRY CO.
The United Poultry Co. Ltd. plant in Vancouver temporarily closed on April 20 after 28 workers at the plant tested positive for COVID-19. The outbreak prompted a statement from B.C. Premier John Horgan who said that sick employees must stay home after learning that workers stayed on the job for fear of losing wages.
...
Two cases of COVID-19 were also confirmed at United Poultry Co.’s sister plant Superior Poultry on April 23. An investigation at the plant is underway.

OLYMEL

Quebec's Olymel slaughterhouse closed on March 29 after nine cases of COVID-19 were detected among its workforce. More than 100 workers at the facility were later found to have been infected.

The plant has since reopened following an increase in disinfection measures and screening activities issued by the region's health authorities. The plant’s entire workforce was in self-isolation duri...

MAPLE LEAF FOODS

Major poultry plant Maple Leaf Foods located in Brampton, Ont. suspended operations on April 8 after three people working at the facility tested positive for COVID-19.
...er, the company says the plant remained open as the worker had not been at the plant for two weeks before the diagnosis.


IMPACT FELT ELSEWHERE

As meat plants make changes to production, the impact is starting to be felt in grocery stores across the country with slower operations struggling to meet demand.

Agriculture Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau said in a video conference in mid April that she is confident Canada has enough food amid the COVID-19 pandemic but said higher prices and less variety on store shelves....

McDonald's Canada says it will start importing beef as Canada's food supply chain struggles to meet demand amid changes in operations to meat plants amid COVID-19. The restaurant chain, which prides itself on using only Canadian beef, said in a statement released April 28 that it had to change its policy due to limited processing capacity at Canadian suppliers including those at Cargill Inc.

In the United States, President Donald Trump has issued an executive order that meat-processing plants remain open to protect the country’s food supply, despite concerns it puts employees at risk of catching the virus.

At least 15 large plants in the U.S., including major producer JBS USA, Smithfield Foods, and Tyson Foods, among others, have temporarily closed or reduced production due to outbreaks.

Earlier this month Prime Min......:tiphat:https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/corona...reak-1.4916957
 
Tyson Fresh Meats Temporarily Pausing Production at Dakota City, Neb, Beef Plant

Plant to conduct deep clean and sanitization after team member screening for COVID-19

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April 29, 2020 19:38 ET | Source: Tyson Foods, Inc.

SPRINGDALE, Ark., April 29, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc., the beef and pork subsidiary of Tyson Foods, Inc. (NYSE: TSN), is currently winding down production and will temporarily pause operations Friday, May 1 through Monday, May 4 at its Dakota City, Neb., beef facility to complete a deep cleaning of the entire plant. The company has been working closely with the local health department and is also in the process of screening plant team members for COVID-19 this week, with assistance from the Nebraska National Guard.


The facility, one of the largest beef processing plant in the country, employs a workforce of 4,300 and normally produces enough beef in one day to feed 18 million people, however with increased absenteeism over the last few weeks the company has scaled back production. While the plant is temporarily idled, and in collaboration with UFCW Local 222, team members will continue to be compensated and asked to continue following CDC guidance such as social distancing, persistent hand washing and wearing of facial coverings to help prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“Team member safety has and continues to be top priority for us and we’re grateful for our team members and their critical role in helping us fulfill, to the best of our ability, our commitment to helping feed people in our community and across the nation,” said Shane Miller, senior vice president & general manager beef enterprise, Tyson Fresh Meats. “We’ve been focused on COVID-19 since January when we first formed a company coronavirus task force. Since that time, we’ve implemented numerous measures to protect workers and, at times, have gone beyond CDC guidance.”

Tyson Foods was one of the first food companies to start taking worker temperatures and has installed more than 150 infrared temperature scanners in its facilities. The company started efforts to secure a supply of facial coverings before the CDC recommended them and now requires and provides them for all team members in all facilities.

Last week a team from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, working with local health officials, toured the facility and were able to see preventive measures the company has implemented to enhance the safety of its team members.

“We have a dedicated health and safety team working with local, state and federal health officials and our facility operations team to make timely decisions about operations,” said Miller. “Our decisions on resuming operations during this challenging time will continue to be based on team member safety.”

Tyson Fresh Meats voluntarily idled its pork facilities in Waterloo and Perry, Iowa, and Logansport, Ind. and beef facility in Pasco, Wash. while team members undergo screening and plants complete deep cleaning of the facilities. The company’s other meat and poultry plants currently continue to operate, but some are running at significantly reduced levels of production due to the planned implementation of additional worker safety precautions.

About Tyson Foods
Tyson Foods, Inc. is one of the world’s largest food companies and a recognized leader in protein. Founded in 1935 by John W. Tyson and grown under three generations of family leadership, the company has a broad portfolio of products and brands like Tyson[SUP]?[/SUP], Jimmy Dean[SUP]?[/SUP], Hillshire Farm[SUP]?[/SUP], Ball Park[SUP]?[/SUP], Wright[SUP]?[/SUP], Aidells[SUP]?[/SUP], ibp[SUP]?[/SUP]and State Fair[SUP]?[/SUP]. Tyson Foods innovates continually to make protein more sustainable, tailor food for everywhere it’s available and raise the world’s expectations for how much good food can do. Headquartered in Springdale, Arkansas, the company has 141,000 team members. Through its Core Values, Tyson Foods strives to operate with integrity, create value for its shareholders, customers, communities and team members and serve as a steward of the animals, land and environment entrusted to it. Visit TYSONFOODS.COM.

Media Contact:
Liz Croston, 605-235-3657, liz.croston@tyson.com
:tiphat:https://www.globenewswire.com/news-r...eef-Plant.html
 
As slaughterhouses close, farmers may have to cull thousands of hogs a day. Those carcasses need to go somewhere—and there are no good options
by H. Claire Brown

04.30.2020, 11:43am

Burning, burying, or composting up to 70,000 hog carcasses a day—or even grinding them into dust—could have serious consequences for our air and drinking water.

Earlier this week, Democratic House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson shared a striking figure with a CNN reporter: Farmers may need to start euthanizing 60,000 to 70,000 pigs per day as slaughterhouses shutter due to rising Covid-19 infections among the meatpacking industry workforce.

It’s a staggering number. In 2018, when Hurricane Florence swept through the Southeast, drowning and suffocating pigs and chickens housed along eastern North Carolina’s flood plains, a total of 5,500 hogs were killed. Now, those casualties may be multiplied tenfold—every single day.

“It is not possible to continue to hold animals on ranches and farms and other pre-processing sites indefinitely for humane and economic reasons,” wrote a USDA spokesperson in an email to The Counter. As we reported earlier this month, animals that stay on the farm after their scheduled slaughter date can outgrow their barns and start having health problems. Culling is a last resort, and farmers are using a variety of tactics to avoid it. Some are feeding pigs soybean hulls, which are mostly fiber and low in calories. Others are turning up the heat in their barns to simulate summer so the animals will gain weight more slowly. It likely won’t be enough: As of Wednesday, about a quarter of the hog processing capacity in the United States had come to a halt.

Manu Raju✔@mkraju
Spoke with House Agriculture Chairman Collin Peterson about the threat to the nation’s pork supply. And he said that farmers will have to kill tens of thousands of pigs a day because of shuttered processing facilities -- and says that the US pork supply is now at serious risk
614
1:35 PM - Apr 27, 2020​
The logistical and economic barriers to disposing of so many animals are enormous. But beyond those immediate concerns, the environmental impacts of wide-scale culling may be felt for decades to come.

It’s unclear how President Trump’s new executive order classifying meatpacking plants as critical infrastructure under the Defense Production Act might impact plant closures. On Wednesday, the Department of Labor issued a statement suggesting that local and state politicians do not have the authority to force plant closures in the event of an outbreak of Covid-19. In the coming days, many plants that have been forced to close may reopen, even as employees continue to report infections. Regardless, producers are preparing for the worst.

“To be very candid with you folks, this is going to be a tough slog,” said Bill Even, CEO of the National ....:tiphat:https://thecounter.org/hog-farmers-c...rus-slaughter/
 
6th Employee At JBS Meat Packaging Plant Dies From Coronavirus

April 30, 2020 at 1:03 pm



WELD COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) – Union officials for JBS employees in Weld County confirm to CBS4 a sixth employee has died from coronavirus. The latest details were revealed on Thursday.

The plant reopened last Friday after being shut down for cleaning earlier this month. Now, an executive order from Pres. Donald Trump requires all such plants in the country to remain open to safeguard the food supply.
Union officials did not identify the sixth victim. They say, according to county data, more than 120 JBS employees tested positive for COVID-19; 74 of whom are United Food and Commercial Workers (UCFW) Local 7 members....:tiphat:https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/04/...s-coronavirus/
 
THREE PORK PLANTS ARE TOP U.S. PRIORITY FOR REOPENING, SAYS PETERSON

PORK AND BEEF PRODUCTION FALTERED THIS MONTH AS PACKING PLANTS SLOWED OR SHUT DOWN SLAUGHTER LINES AS THE VIRUS INFECTED THOUSANDS OF EMPLOYEES.
By
Chuck Abbott
4/30/2020
National Pork Board
The Trump administration’s top meat-industry priority is reopening three pork plants, now shuttered due to coronavirus outbreaks, that account for 12 percent of U.S. hog slaughter, said the House Agriculture Committee chairman on Wednesday. Labor and public officials said meat production will not revive nationwide unless workers feel safe in the often-crowded processing plants.

Pork and beef production faltered this month as packing plants slowed or shut down slaughter lines as the virus infected thousands of employees. At least 20 workers have died, according to a labor union that represents meat workers. Consumers will face higher meat prices or spot outages of some products in coming weeks, according to an industry analyst.

President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to keep plants operating during the pandemic — overruling state and local officials worried about virus hot spots — and put Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue in charge of the effort. The executive order directs meatpackers to follow CDC guidelines on minimizing workers’ exposure to the coronavirus.

“The secretary said this morning their No. 1 priority right now is to open up this plant, the plant in Sioux Falls, [and] the plant in Waterloo,” said House Agriculture chairman Collin Peterson during a news conference in Worthington, Minnesota, home to a JBS pork plant. Peterson said he had spoken to Perdue earlier in the day....:tiphat:https://www.agriculture.com/news/liv...-says-peterson
 
Pa. leads nation in virus-stricken meat plant workers, CDC says

22 facilities report employees have tested positive for COVID-19

JESSICA CALEFATI AND BOB FERNANDEZ
The Philadelphia Inquirer

MAY 3, 2020

12:00 AM

Pennsylvania leads the nation in confirmed cases of COVID-19 among meat production workers, according to a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday, the same day that activists and workers from one Central Pennsylvania plant began protesting what they described as unsafe working conditions.

Across Pennsylvania, 22 meat- and poultry-processing plants employed workers sickened by the coronavirus, the report says. The state with the next highest number of impacted plants, Georgia, has almost half as many affected facilities.

Pennsylvania’s 858 confirmed cases of the virus among meat production workers also tops other states’ tallies by dozens of cases, signaling that the invisible virus had spread further across this essential industry in recent weeks than the public has realized.

At the same time, Lebanon County poultry processor Bell & Evans, the target of the protesters’ ire, refused to publicly disclose the number of coronavirus cases at its plant in Fredericksburg, northeast of Harrisburg, where workers say they got sick because the company was slow providing face masks and where social distancing is especially difficult....:tiphat:https://www.post-gazette.com/news/st...s/202005030095
 
Calgary
85% of workers afraid to return as Alberta meat plant preps to reopen after COVID-19 outbreak, union says

Union is fighting to keep the Cargill plant, site of Canada's largest coronavirus outbreak, closed

Sarah Rieger ? CBC News ? Posted: May 03, 2020 5:00 AM MT

The union representing workers at an Alberta meat-packing plant, the site of one of North America's largest COVID-19 outbreaks, continues to fight to prevent the facility from reopening on Monday as planned.

A total of 1,510 cases of COVID-19 in Alberta are now linked to the outbreak at the Cargill plant, located near High River, according to a spokesperson for Alberta Health.

Nearly half of the company's 2,000 staff, 917 workers, have tested positive. Cargill announced the plant would close on April 20, after a worker died of COVID-19.

"The plant shouldn't reopen unless it's safe," said Thomas Hesse, president of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 401. "In recent days, large plants in the United States that have been closed for two weeks have reopened and the number of diagnoses doubled after some plants reopened."

The union surveyed more than 600 workers in four languages over the weekend; 85 per cent reported they are afraid to return to work and 80 per cent said they do not want the plant to reopen Monday.

UFCW is seeking a stop-work order from Alberta Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) and has also filed an unfair labour practice complaint against both the Cargill plant and the Government of Alberta....:tiphat:https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...553751?cmp=rss
 
Tyson warns more meat plant closures are coming
Updated: 10:05 AM EDT May 4, 2020
Danielle Wiener-Bronner

Tyson warned Monday that it expects more meat plant closures this year.

The company also said it will continue producing less meat than usual, as workers refrain from coming to work during the coronavirus pandemic.
"We have and expect to continue to face slowdowns and temporary idling of production facilities from team member shortages or choices we make to ensure operational safety," the company said in a statement discussing financial results from the first three months of this year.

The meat processor has shuttered a number of plants in recent weeks as workers fall ill with COVID-19. It's warned that if the closures continue, America's food supply will suffer.

"There will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able to reopen our facilities that are currently closed," Board chairman John Tyson warned in a full-page ad that appeared recently in newspapers across the country....:tiphat:https://www.wmtw.com/article/tyson-w...oming/32363049
 
Why do these plants have such a high infection rate? Compared to other sorts of warehouse arenas like Amazon and WalMart? Does the meat get infected? Is it the low temperature of about 44F in the plants that increases the chances of transmission?

If this coronavirus can live on the refrigerated meat? then consumers need to be sure to handle it appropriately and COOK IT BEFORE EATING. (This is a no-brainer - always cook your beef, pork, chicken.)


I am not connecting the issues but here is the CDC page on food safety - updated March 18, 2020:

https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/keep-food-safe.html
 
https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pan...ve-coronavirus
Nearly 1,400 Tyson Workers at 3 Iowa Plants Test Positive for Coronavirus

IOWA CITY, IOWA - Nearly 1,400 workers at three Tyson Foods pork processing plants in Iowa have tested positive for the coronavirus, the state reported Tuesday, as deaths surged to a new daily high and a testing backlog persisted.

The Iowa Department of Public Health revealed for the first time that the state's largest workplace outbreak has been at the Tyson plant in Perry in central Iowa. There, 730 workers were confirmed to have the virus, a startling 58% of those tested, the department said.

The Tyson plant in Waterloo has had 444 workers test positive, and its Columbus Junction plant has had 221 confirmed infections, the department said
Click to expand...
...snip
 
Doctors Petition USDA to Warn Consumers About Potential Presence of SARS-CoV-2 on Meat and Poultry Products


Slaughterhouses have become a primary vector for spread of coronavirus, petition explains

May 20, 2020 07:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time
WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine—a nonprofit with more than 12,000 doctor members—has filed an Emergency Petition with the U.S. Department of Agriculture requiring that slaughterhouses test meat and poultry for SARS-CoV-2 prior to making it available for sale and requiring groceries to warn consumers of the potential presence of SARS-CoV-2 on meat and poultry products.....

..Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, thousands of slaughterhouse workers have been infected with SARS-CoV-2. As of May 14, there were at least 14,259 infections and 59 deaths among U.S. slaughterhouse workers, according to the Food & Environment Reporting Network...

...The petition, filed by Mark Kennedy, vice president for Legal Affairs at the Physicians Committee, says, “Because these workers, who may be asymptomatic viral carriers, directly handle meat and poultry products, and because SARS-CoV-2 is easily airborne, remaining detectable for 30 minutes or more in air samples, transmission of the virus to the products they handle is likely.”
Researchers have not specifically tested the temperature at which meat and poultry products would have to be heated to kill SARS-CoV-2....:tiphat:
https://www.businesswire.com/news/ho...00520005125/en
 
Mapping Covid-19 in meat and food processing plants

By Leah Douglas, April 22, 2020

[This story was updated on May 20]

According to data collected by FERN, as of May 20 at 12pm ET, at least 216 meatpacking and processed food plants and 16 farms have confirmed cases of Covid-19, and at least four processed food plants are currently closed. At least 17,713 workers (15,996 meatpacking workers, 1,086 food processing workers, and 631 farmworkers) have tested positive for Covid-19 and at least 70 workers (64 meatpacking workers and 6 food processing workers) have died.

MAP ... Read more...

https://thefern.org/2020/04/mapping-covid-19-in-meat-and-food-processing-plants/
 
Kansas altered meatpacking guidance to let possibly exposed workers stay on the job

After industry executives repeatedly raised the issue with the state’s top agricultural official, Kansas relaxed its quarantine guidelines so meatpacking workers potentially exposed to the coronavirus could stay on the job.

snip

And those workers are close together.

“It’s not shoulder to shoulder,” he said. “But many of the people are working close enough that they can almost hand something to the next person. They’re not six feet apart.”

The American meat market is built around providing a cheap and consistent product, he said. A system of smaller, regional packing houses might have been more resilient in the face of a pandemic. But the large, centralized operations that reign the market keep prices down for consumers.

“If you’re dealing with commodity products, then you’ve got to be cheap,” Safranski said. “If it’s pork, then you’re competing with everybody else’s pork so it’s who is selling it the cheapest. Whoever can produce it the cheapest makes the most money.”

Wichita Eagle - https://bit.ly/3ge0z5N
 
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