Smithfield shutting down a pork plant.
“It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running,” Smithfield Chief Executive Ken Sullivan said in a statement on Sunday. “These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain, first and foremost our nation’s livestock farmers.”
Smithfield said it will resume operations in Sioux Falls after further direction from local, state and federal officials. The company will pay employees for the next two weeks, according to the statement.
The company has been running its plants to supply U.S. consumers during the outbreak, Sullivan said.
“We have a stark choice as a nation: we are either going to produce food or not, even in the face of COVID-19,” he said.
Other major U.S. meat and poultry processors, including Tyson Foods Inc, Cargill Inc and JBS USA have already idled plants in other states.
2 replies on “Here It Comes”
I’ve said this again and again from the beginng. Yes first responders, doctors and nurses, grocery stocker are heros, but if farmers and ranchers stop, we all starve unless you grow your own. And if the food is not processed there is none to ship to the stores. The death toll would make Covd19 look like a severe head cold.
Yep, the possible economic consequences are so huge they’re mind boggling. It doesn’t even have to go as far as starvation, just serious shortages could do it. You’d expect rising food prices running into a big spike in unemployment and a drop in tax revenues at both the federal and state levels to pay for any kind of social safety net. If there are serious shortages in the U.S. I’d expect starvation and a collapse into chaos in China. They’ll be queueing for spots on a ledge on Wall Street.