A major pork plant in the United States has closed as a result of the coronavirus hysteria. The company that runs the plant also warned of a potential food shortage.
Smithfield Foods, the world’s biggest pork processor, said on Sunday it will shut a U.S. plant indefinitely due to a rash of coronavirus cases among employees and warned the country was moving “perilously close to the edge” in supplies for grocers.
Slaughterhouse shutdowns are disrupting the U.S. food supply chain, crimping availability of meat at retail stores and leaving farmers without outlets for their livestock.
Smithfield extended the closure of its Sioux Falls, South Dakota, plant after initially saying it would idle temporarily for cleaning. The facility is one of the nation’s largest pork processing facilities, representing 4% to 5% of U.S. pork production, according to the company.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said on Saturday that 238 Smithfield employees had active cases of the new coronavirus, accounting for 55% of the state’s total. Noem and the mayor of Sioux Falls had recommended the company shut the plant, which has about 3,700 workers, for at least two weeks.
“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.”
This is obviously not a good sign. There have already been all sorts of major supply disruptions but if we start seeing big disruptions with the food supply, that’s when things could get really bad.
People can virtue signal all they want with pointless slogans like “we’re all in this together” or some other bullshit. But when you have millions of people who are hungry and have no food to eat, all that civility will quickly go out the window.
The fact that there’s been little to no talk about how important it is to keep the food industry going is deeply concerning. As much as I am against government bailouts, the food industry is one of the few industries that one could reasonably argue is worth temporarily propping up.
But who knows, maybe none of that will be necessary. Maybe the government will come up with a plan to provide the American people with tasty green nutrient squares so we can all avoid mass starvation.
