Another huge meat plant has been closed indefinitely in the U.S., with experts saying the country is just weeks away from shortages.
Tyson Foods Inc. said Thursday it was shutting its beef facility in Pasco, Washington, while team members undergo testing for Covid-19. That’s adding to an avalanche of news that’s hit in just the past day. Tyson closed two of its key pork plants.
Case counts continued to mount, including in Canada, where industry groups are saying they’ll probably hold back some of what’s usually exported to the U.S. Meanwhile, the head of JBS SA, the world’s top meat producer, warned of shortfalls.
At least EIGHT major U.S. meat facilities have seen halts in the space of a few weeks.
The Tyson plant in Washington **produces enough beef in one day to feed FOUR MILLION PEOPLE, according to the company. It’s one of the few facilities in the northwestern U.S., with the capacity of 2,300 cattle a day.
Resuming operations is dependent on a variety of factors, including the outcome of team member testing and how long it takes to get results back.
The U.S. government on Wednesday pushed out its monthly figures on frozen food inventories, which stood in sharp relief against the backdrop of closures. One figure in particular might give even the naysayers pause.
Combined pork, beef and poultry supplies in cold-storage facilities now stand equal to roughly TWO WEEKS of total American meat production. With most plant shutdowns lasting about 14 days for safety reasons, that raises the potential for deficits.
“Meat shortages will be occurring two weeks from now in the retail outlets,” Dennis Smith, a senior account executive at Archer Financial Services, said this week, citing industry sources. “There is simply no spot pork available. The big box stores will get their needs met, many others will not.”
“Cattle slaughter dropped 37% this week from a year ago… far outstrip[ping] the 10% to 15% in capacity that’s been halted with meat plants closed”, Bloomberg’s Michael Hirtzer wrote Friday afternoon. “Hog slaughter was down 35%, also topping the shutdown figure of 25% to 30%”.
The USDA underscored the point. “Since its peak in late March, federally inspected beef production fell almost 32% through the week ending April 25 as the rate of cattle slaughter declined at several beef packing facilities”, the government said Thursday.
That sharp deceleration in cattle slaughter rates obviously choked beef production. After flagging the impact of labor force absences caused by the proliferation of the virus, the USDA notes that this is “a time when cattle slaughter numbers increase seasonally”, but the “rates for the week ending April 25 were down 28% year-over-year”.
Since 1975. And I’m not a vegetarian…I’ve been told it’s a pescatarian. I eat fish. Just nothing with lungs.
Oh, and by the way, I don’t care what you eat.
It’s easy - don’t eat with people who eat murdered animals !
I stopped eating animals when a girlfriend told me to watch a repeat TV programme, that she had seen, on slaughter houses.
I said, “No - I know what slaughter houses are like, I’m going to the pub, but I promise never to eat animals again”
I’ve kept my promise for forty years.
Murdering animals should be illegal.
You can do it Ponponwei
