By: NANCY DUPLECHAIN
Associate Editor
Interruptions in the food chain have already begun to take a toll on the meat supply in the U.S. Some Wendy’s restaurants are not selling beef hamburgers, and some stores are limiting certain items. The system has been bottlenecked by meat-packing plants that have had to shutter because of COVID-19 outbreaks.
Pat Nero, owner of Champagne’s Food Store, said, “We’re limiting a few beef products and more pork products.” He is hoping to be back on track soon, but thinks things could be like this for a while. “I don’t know how worse it’s going to get. You have so many stores out of the same product. The warehouses are putting the stores on allocation based on their inventory. It’s like rationing. A store might get one product one week but not the next. When you do get it, you run out of it in a few days.”
Paul Fontenot, owner of Paul’s Meat Market, said the real shortage is about to start. “We’ll start having trouble with beef and pork. We haven’t seen a price increase in poultry, but beef and pork are getting outrageous. The meat-packing plants usually process about 400 head of cattle an hour and now they’re down to about 100 an hour. When restaurants open, supply will get worse.”
He said they are not currently limiting any items, but they might have to in the future.
Luke Deville, owner of Teet’s Food Store, said the plants were cleaning in between shifts but it became too much, so they shut down. “They started shipping out their frozen product for emergencies like this and now that supply is getting low. Some plants are coming back online now, but they’re not operating at the capacity as what they were. Most are operating at around 40% capacity.” Deville believes the pork industry is going to be hurt the most based on what he is experiencing at his store. “We ordered 85 cases of Boston Butt roast, but only five came in. “Pork is the worst right now as far as what’s in stock from what we’re seeing, but our secondary suppliers are seeing the same issue. To get frozen pork, they’re paying top dollar and then they mark it up and they sell. We’re taking cuts on our margin because the prices are too high. The beef is the highest ever recorded right now. The cattlemen and farmers aren’t getting any money. They’re getting pennies.”
Tyson Foods, Inc. chairman John H. Tyson warned “the food supply chain is breaking,” adding, “millions of animals — chickens, pigs, and cattle will be depopulated because of the closure of our processing facilities.” President Trump issued an executive order two days later in an attempt to keep meat processing plant workers on the line, declaring the plants as “critical infrastructure.” Unions argued he was putting workers’ lives at risk in favor of corporate greed, while public health officials called for plants with outbreaks to close. The government kept some open.
Meat-packing plants often have workers side-by-side in chilly environments which makes it a breeding ground for COVID-19. Some of the worst outbreaks have come from these processing facilities. There have been nearly 12,000 reported COVID-19 cases from 189 meat and processed food factories around the country. At least 48 workers have died.
A lawsuit filed last month against Smithfield Foods alleged workers must stand shoulder-to-shoulder and workers are not frequented the opportunity to wash their hands. It also said when workers are sick, getting time off is difficult. Additionally, workers would face disciplinary action for missing a piece of meat on the assembly line, so they are afraid to turn away to cough or sneeze. These are the types of situations that have led to the outbreaks in processing plants.
As the effects of the pandemic continue into the summer, the ripple effects from the processing plants will put more of a strain on the market. Even when plants open up again, strict rules will have to be put in place to keep workers safe, and there will most likely be fewer workers on the line, creating slower lines, leading to less meat making it to market.
Aside from Tyson, Smithfield has closed their plants in Missouri and Wisconsin and one of the largest plants in the country in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. JBS USA closed their beef processing plant in Colorado and their pork plant in Minnesota, while Cargill shut down plants in Nebraska and Pennsylvania. Smaller processing plants cannot handle the large volume of animals needing to be processed to keep the supply chain going.