Beef processors are closing U.S. plants,
warn of beef shortages and hoarding
The Week,
by
Staff
Original Article
Posted By: Pluperfect,
4/18/2020 3:54:51 AM
"The American food supply is strong, resilient, and safe," Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue assured Americans on Wednesday, "and in fact our food supply chain has shown tremendous agility in shifting production and logistics so suddenly from restaurant and institutional settings to retail settings" during the COVID-19 pandemic. There may be empty shelves now, he said, but "in the United States, we have plenty of food for all of our citizens." The new coronavirus is doing more than just creating logistical misalignment, though. Most meat is processed at giant facilities, creating a weak point in the production chain.
Reply 1 - Posted by:
BirdsNest 4/18/2020 4:11:15 AM (No. 383370)
I guess that's why the grocery store was limited in choices for all meats. I don't have TV so my information comes from the Internet. I can't imagine anyone having room in their freezers for more meat. The first 3 weeks of this panic there was hardly anything to be had, maybe chicken backs and turkey necks.
13 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Catherine 4/18/2020 4:47:14 AM (No. 383384)
I tired of all these 'the sky is falling' articles. I think they want to ramp up fear and hysteria in the country for no good reason. We never ran out of anything and don't know anyone who has. Enough with the scare tactics.
91 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
EJKrausJr 4/18/2020 4:58:04 AM (No. 383390)
What should be alarming to Americans is how much of the food chain is owned lock stock and barrel by the Chicoms.
106 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
DCGIRL 4/18/2020 6:12:55 AM (No. 383403)
It's the Week, more fake news. Let's panic the average moran to run out and buy up all the meat products like they did with toilet paper.
64 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
redsiberia 4/18/2020 7:27:04 AM (No. 383446)
Yep #3, Smithfield Foods is owned by China. You can look it up.
55 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Highlander 4/18/2020 7:41:02 AM (No. 383458)
Before this panic started, we always have three freezers full of frozen veggies and meat, in case of financial hard times. We’re not worried. We haven’t been to a restaurant or drive-through for five weeks now.
20 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
Strike3 4/18/2020 7:56:19 AM (No. 383467)
Vegans, vegetarians and greenie snowflakes will love this news. It's also part of the AOC/Chakravarti plan to destroy the world. Out here in flyover country, local farmers have their meat processed at smaller operations so I suspect if this problem is real it is just another malady of the cities.
19 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
franq 4/18/2020 8:01:08 AM (No. 383472)
Ha, #1.
Save the neck for me, Clark.
17 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Urgent Fury 4/18/2020 8:56:47 AM (No. 383523)
Fortunately, my in-laws butchered a steer right as this whole panic was starting.
12 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
lisa belanger 4/18/2020 9:02:22 AM (No. 383533)
ok with me i do not look at red meat
fish. poultry and all organic....a burger once in awhile had to be
prime beef......people are so crazy in the stores toilet paper toilet paper
they should buy a bidet in europe bidet in all the homes
7 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
lisa belanger 4/18/2020 9:04:46 AM (No. 383537)
you can grow your vegies i do
11 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
gone2pot 4/18/2020 9:11:29 AM (No. 383543)
Greetings from cattle country; REAL cattle country. Yes, the processors have closed until their Chicom virus infected employees and non-Chicom virus infected employees, 1- stop receiving MORE money per month from Uncle Sugar Teat than their normal pay, and 2- the dempanic goes away and people go back to work and get paid for their labor. That will eventually happen but in the mean time cattle prices are super low and going down daily (Rio Lindans, cows-cattle, pigs, chickens have to be processed. That means cut up into smaller pieces at processing plants before being wrapped in clear plastic. Sadly, they don't grow all cut up in cellophane behind the Walmart meat coolers). The beef, pork and chicken prices will soar in the next two weeks and be hard to get because cattle won't get cut up and sent to Whole Paycheck or Wally World or Sams Club or Piggly Wiggly, ad infinitum. Stock up now if you can and probably in a month, processed beef, pork and chicken prices will go back to normal market. And btw, YOU are bailing out the processing plants and NOT the cattle ranchers who are losing their ranches because of this nonsense. If you know how to slaughter and have the equipment and a really big freezer (like Nancy's) or if your local meat locker is still running and you can go in with two or four people to get a side or half a side, you can get a decent price on a cow from a rancher and get some REALLY good beef wrapped up in white paper (if they cryo-pac, do that). Same with pork (for Rio Lindans, that would be hogs).
36 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
cor-vet 4/18/2020 9:15:22 AM (No. 383550)
Every store around here has plenty of meat, of all kinds, in the coolers. The virus may have shut down dine-in dining, but the drive throughs, take-out, and order and pick up trade has just picked up more. This is like the stories of farmers dumping milk. If the truckers are still hauling, the only kink in the chain would be in processing. Are processors not considered essential? It seems like every day, there's something new to panic over. It's getting as tiresome as the regulations being added every day by the newly empowered tin-pot dictators. The naysayers and petty tyrants aren't going to give this new found power up without a fight.
24 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
bigfatslob 4/18/2020 9:18:50 AM (No. 383553)
Like respirators, masks, hospital beds then all the toilet paper now the beef all have to go to New York to keep it afloat.
We were talking with friends about Governor Chicken Little Cuomo and a few other states that plan on shutting down until June and possibly July. We want to get back to living again the entire country is being gauged by what happens in New York.
This is more scare tactics to make the moron hoarders clean out the meat counters.
25 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
MDConservative 4/18/2020 9:41:19 AM (No. 383570)
Where's the President invoking the Defense Production Act of 1950? We need food like we needed respirators. Maybe GM and Ford can send out some idled autoworkers to help in the meat processing plants and to package veggies.
8 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
Kafka2 4/18/2020 9:45:36 AM (No. 383574)
First it was the toilet paper shortage hoax that caused people to panic and buy three or four times as much toilet paper than normal. The supply chain was not meant to instantly respond to a doubling in demand so shelves got stripped bare. The MSM played this up and kept the panic going.
Now the are trying to do the same with beef. Beef processors may be closing due to reduced demand because people are laid off and do not have the money to buy it.
19 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
red1066 4/18/2020 9:58:15 AM (No. 383590)
Nothings open. No one can go out to eat, so the amount of beef being sold falls flat. It's the same with car sales right now. No income coming in, no car sales.
9 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
AlpineLace 4/18/2020 10:17:42 AM (No. 383605)
There is plenty of beef. The processors are trying a squeeze play on cattle producers. Processors are charging higher and higher prices while paying the ranchers less and less money. Who owns the big processors - the Chinese?
24 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
bighambone 4/18/2020 10:21:23 AM (No. 383612)
Notice that in the article, we are advised that the biggest US based pork processor, Smithfield Foods is owned effectively by the Chinese Communist Government of China, that was allowed to purchased Smithfield Foods during the Obama-Biden era.
Under the Communist economic system in China when you get to the bottom line the Communist Government there owns all Chinese businesses regardless of the middlemen, women, or entities who are publicly presented as being the owners. That means that the Communist Government of China has the insider information regarding exactly how much processed pork that Smithfield Foods has on hand at any given time along with how much processed pork is being released into the US economy or is being exported to China.
It would be the same with the other multinational corporations that own US food and meat processing operations while the American people are essentially kept in the dark except through short government pronouncements that there is enough food in the USA. Common sense will tell you that it is the same across the US economy. That’s what globalization has brought to America.
Remember President Trump has been speaking out against such globalization, including sending much past US manufacturing abilities out of the USA to low wage countries, which has and is causing a loss of huge numbers of US manufacturing jobs, for which Trump has been opposed and resisted from the get-go by the globalist investor classes and their DC UniParty supporting politicians. Recently while on the campaign trail, Joseph Biden has been telling Americans that he has been dealing with China for many years and that China is not a legitimate competitor to the US economy or a threat to the USA?
29 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
Arby 4/18/2020 10:25:45 AM (No. 383618)
Don't panic. I see a real change in the availability of toilet paper. I have four markets nearby and each has toilet paper available. That means that the supply chain is intact and that people have stopped hoarding. Relax; we'll get through this.
21 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
TJ54 4/18/2020 10:45:39 AM (No. 383642)
There is plenty of cattle and local slaughterhouses, so this is not the crisis fake news is making it
9 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
TJ54 4/18/2020 10:46:18 AM (No. 383644)
I will NEVER buy Smithfield ham ever again. China is -sshole
23 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
NotaBene 4/18/2020 10:49:56 AM (No. 383647)
Happily, Alabama opened up restaurants today. Time to wrap up this charade. Democrats want the country closed and Republicans want to work. As for meatpacking, its the malefic influence of the Unions.
18 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
akudaq 4/18/2020 10:53:03 AM (No. 383652)
#12, Just saw an ad yesterday for local beef and pork sold by 1/4 and 1/2s. 1/2 beef was $5.00 per lb. for hanging weight. Not sure if that's a good deal $$$, but the meat is certainly fresh, raised on grass, hay and barley.
8 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
chillijilli 4/18/2020 11:07:59 AM (No. 383676)
I like what AZ is doing. Restaurants that had to shut down dining-in venues can sell takeout and GROCERIES as well. So everybody wins at least a little: the food and restaurant supply vendors, the restaurants, and the consumers. I can order burgers, steaks, wine, alcohol or even TP from restaurants. Yesterday I picked up 3 8oz beef filets for $8 each and a variety box of frozen wild-caught fish for $35. Not bad at all!
9 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
bighambone 4/18/2020 11:55:59 AM (No. 383715)
I agree with poster #20 regarding the toilet paper supply at the retail level. By now most of the media generated toilet paper panic is subsiding while a new media driven panic targeting meat is ramping up. The toilet paper hoarders now have about a three year supply of toilet paper at home, with the retail stores and big box stores refusing to allow toilet paper to be returned. So in keeping with the law of supply and demand shortly there is bound to be an abundance of toilet paper for sale.
The same thing is bound to occur with meat, except faster, because meat must be frozen and unless the meat hoarders have Nancy Pelosi type $24,000 freezers in their homes to keep the meat frozen, and that is not about to happen, as the potential hoarders are not going to to buy excess meat if it is just going to rot away.
9 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
Chuzzles 4/18/2020 11:58:39 AM (No. 383720)
I suspect that the local producers are going to be able to keep up. It is the big regional/national producers who tend to employ illegals to keep costs down that are going to have a problem possibly. Not hoarding, but I have no problems with normal stocking up when a good price comes along. That is how most people operate anyway.
9 people like this.
More fake news to cause more panic buying just what we need from this totally irresponsible press. I love it that they end with No one really knows. Well if you don't know why do you have a glaring headline that says you do?
9 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
LC Chihuahua 4/18/2020 12:20:39 PM (No. 383742)
Gee. Thought meat processing would be considered an essential business. This is equal doses of CV among meat packers, restaurant closures causing a lesser demand for meat, and media scare tactics. The solution? Reopen the economy.
9 people like this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
DVC 4/18/2020 12:24:19 PM (No. 383749)
I'll bet that 70% of the workers in the big beef processing factories in far western KS are illegals. Huge one in Garden City that we drive by when going west to our mountain cabin.
These big companies, Costco, Tyson, and Hormel come to small towns, build giant meat packing plants (chicken, beef, pork) where there are maybe 100 people there available to staff their literally thousands of jobs. And guess what, thousand and thousands of illegals slip in, are hired and take over the community. Look at Storm Lake, Iowa, Austin, Minnesota, and Garden City, Kansas. Thousands of illegals, growing anchor babies, taking over towns and "Mexicanizing" whole swaths of rural midwest.
While Americans abort millions of babies, the big companies import illegals to replace them. Hideous.
20 people like this.
Reply 31 - Posted by:
DVC 4/18/2020 12:26:39 PM (No. 383752)
Here you go. How some moneygrubbing Americans are voting to bring in thousands of illegal aliens....and not just bigwigs for the big packing companies, not at all.
https://slate.com/business/2017/12/latino-immigrants-and-meatpacking-in-midwestern-towns-like-fremont-nebraska.html
4 people like this.
Reply 32 - Posted by:
Harlowe 4/18/2020 12:52:24 PM (No. 383788)
#2- The old adage, “consider the source,” is always a prudent way to “measure” reality. Democrats, through their progeny, the mainstream media, have been and continue to do everything they can to destroy President Trump and do care not about destroying the lives of American citizens. Because Democrats and the mainstream media perpetually distort and/or lie, reality has reached a point of them having cried “wolf” too often and, as a result, informed people are highly skeptical of anything they say, do, or write. Chances are the “message of alarm” is another strategy to undermine President Trump and his administration. After all, November 3rd is not that far away--their increasing desperation is becoming more apparent.
5 people like this.
Reply 33 - Posted by:
RedWhite&Blue2 4/18/2020 1:17:01 PM (No. 383822)
BOYCOTT all things made in China, owned by China, sold by China
If it’s made in China
If it’s owned by China
PUT IT BACK!
STOP BUYING Chinese!
Forever!
9 people like this.
First we had the Great Toilet Paper Apocalypse. Now it's gonna be the Great Beef Apocalypse. What next? Hysteria runs out of control in our country, fueled by the enemedia.
7 people like this.
Reply 35 - Posted by:
JHHolliday 4/18/2020 3:56:42 PM (No. 383946)
I use a small local butcher shop for my meat buys. A real butcher and his son own it and the meat is always fresher and better than the big box groceries. He can also do special cuts and order unusual items. I was there today and he had plenty of everything. I suspect the MSM will play this up hoping to prolong the misery.
4 people like this.
Reply 36 - Posted by:
paral04 4/18/2020 4:51:21 PM (No. 383990)
Are the cattle sick with the virus?
3 people like this.
Reply 37 - Posted by:
4Justice 4/18/2020 7:50:19 PM (No. 384124)
it sounds to me like we need to rethink the way that we do business anymore in this country. We need to open more smaller businesses again and not rely on these big giant companies like these giant processors. We also need to stop allowing foreigners to buy our companies. We need to turn this disaster into opportunity to bring back the America we once knew and loved.
1 person likes this.
There are a lot of people who can't afford to hoard nor do they have the space to hoard.
Before Easter the store was busy like any holiday selling out and some woman was complaining "I can't believe this is all you have to pick from" Then there are the shoppers like Shipt and InstaCart.
0 people like this.
Reply 39 - Posted by:
bigken2 4/19/2020 8:12:06 AM (No. 384298)
if it says made in china do NOT buy it
0 people like this.