Tyson Food Tells The Public To Prepare For The Worst
First, it was toilet paper and non-perishables, but it appears things have become much worse. Tyson Foods has sent out a warning to the public that things are about to get tough as "the food supply chain is breaking." And here it seemed we were so close to opening back up and getting back to normal.
" ...The food supply chain is vulnerable," the statement said. "As pork, beef and chicken plants are being forced to close, even for short periods of time, millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain."
"Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, has infected hundreds of workers at meat-processing plants and forced some of the largest to close and others to slow production. While the output at beef and poultry plants has diminished, pork plants in the Midwest have been hit especially hard. The viral outbreaks have persisted despite efforts by the meat companies to keep workers at home with pay if they become sick.
The 15 largest pork-packing plants account for 60 percent of all pork processed, so when even one of those plants closes for days or weeks, the consequences ripple across the industry. That has become abundantly clear with two of the nation's biggest plants now closed: Tyson suspended operations at its plant in Waterloo, Iowa. And Smithfield Foods halted production at its plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Each plant can butcher nearly 20,000 hogs a day. Some plants have reopened days after cleaning.
The result is that the nation's pork processing capacity had declined by about 25% as of last week, said Steve Meyer, an industry economist with Kerns and Associates in Ames, Iowa.
Sarah Little, a spokeswoman for the North American Meat Institute, an industry trade group, said: "It's down across the board right now, so the next couple of weeks we should see how the system works. It's never been tested like this before."
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A beef production plant in Green Bay, Wisconsin, is the latest to shut down because of infections among employees. JBS USA said the JBS Packerland plant, which employs 1,200, would be closed temporarily. As of Monday, 255 employees at the plant tested positive for covid-19, said Claire Paprocki, a spokeswoman for the county health department.
Nationally, although the reduced meat supply is expected to cause consumer prices to rise, expectations are that the increases will be slight. The U.S. Department of Agriculture said late last week that it expects beef prices to climb 1% to 2% this year, poultry as much as 1.5% and pork between by from 2% and 3%."
So it looks like it is time to get a little extra meat before the price spikes. The Tyson spokesperson claims it could be a several weeks until things go back normal. Hopefully, there is enough to go around until then.