'The food supply chain is breaking': Tyson Foods raises coronavirus alarm in full-page ads, defends

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Washington Post

Morning Mix

'The food supply chain is breaking': Tyson Foods raises coronavirus alarm in full-page ads, defends safety efforts

Tyson Foods claimed in its Sunday ad that if closed plants don't reopen soon, farmers may have to "depopulate" cows, pigs and chickens that were destined for the dinner table.

By Katie Shepherd
April 27, 2020 at 6:58 a.m. EDT

In a full-page newspaper ad published in The Washington Post, the New York Times and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Sunday, Tyson Foods -- which sells products ranging from frozen chicken nuggets to cuts of raw pork -- said the coronavirus pandemic may disrupt the U.S. food supply chain and raise the price of meat.

The company defended itself from criticism that it has not adequately protected its workers and pleaded for more government assistance in doing so.

"The food supply chain is breaking," wrote John H. Tyson, chairman of the company's executive board. "We have a responsibility to feed our country. It is as essential as healthcare. This is a challenge that should not be ignored. Our plants must remain operational so that we can supply food to our families in America. This is a delicate balance because Tyson Foods places team member safety as our top priority."

The company warned that shuttering processing plants would cause "millions of pounds of meat" to disappear from the markets, reducing what's available on grocery store shelves and raising prices. Farmers may have to kill and dispose of cows, pigs and chickens that were bred for the closed slaughterhouses, the company claimed, and those animals' meat would go to waste.

{snip}

Katie Shepherd
Katie Shepherd is a reporter on The Washington Post's Morning Mix team. Before joining The Post, she was a staff writer at Willamette Week in Portland, Ore. Follow https://twitter.com/katemshepherd

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/04/27/tyson-food-supply-coronavirus/

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Fri Apr 24, 2020:

Farms to destroy 2M chickens due to plant staffing shortages

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10563537

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1043690

[bucolic_frolic]

1. There will be people raising chickens in their basements and apartments

I knew there was a craze beyond earthworms and rabbit-ear heating

[knightmaar]

2. Sounds like someone is trying to jack up the price of their meat.

This seems like irresponsible fear mongering. We don't need more hoarding.

[underpants]

5. That was my thought too nt

[rzemanfl]

7. I need to wash socks. BBL. n/t

[ToxMarz]

23. Of course, they are a giant for profit whos only fiduciary

duty is to maximize share holder value. They can't legally spend money on an ad that is not for that purpose.

Their actions are best judged under that light.

[TexasBushwhacker]

25. Frankly, the cost of chicken should be higher

I can get a 10 lb bag of frozen leg quarters at Kroger for $5.90. 59 cents a pound. Sure, boneless, skinless breast go for $2 to $3 a pound, but still, an animal was raised, fed and died for that. I'm definitely an omnivore, but I wouldn't have a problem with the price of meat going up a little if it meant better conditions in the processing plants.

[Jamastiene]

3. They could reopen their plants and give workers protection to wear while working.

They don't have to close everything down, kill most of the animals, and threaten us by making demands for money from the government this way, but that is what they chose to do.

[dalton99a]

4. USDA data:

[NoMoreRepugs]

9. Thanks for the data d99a.

Facts always come in handy.

[jimfields33]

6. There is no defense

They should have given out protective gear day one and ensured everyone was six feet apart. Could have slowed things down but safety of employees would have happened and they would not have had to close down. Dummies!!!!!

[Xipe Totec]

8. I'll have to serve fava beans and a nice chianti but without the liver. nt

[Roy Rolling]

10. Don't Eat Slaughterhouse Meat

Or better yet, none at all. There is no safe level of consumption, only managed and minimized risks. In a pandemic, those controls can become overwhelmed and ineffective without strict standards and forethought.

Not likely in an administration and industry bragging how deregulated and uninspected it has become.

[Marthe48]

11. fragile supply chain

This seems to show that very little time is spent on plans in case of disasters. I hope that where it is possible, farmers and their neighbors can set up some direct market chains. If all of the national and international supply chains are in peril, maybe going back to local selling will work for now. The USDA relaxed inspection rules and if I were a farmer, I'd push my products in whatever market is available. I'm thinking of checking local resources, but I don't have a freezer.

I saw a post from Bloomberg on DU yesterday, which says we could be weeks away from meat shortages. I saw another story that migrant workers are harvesting crops. A lot of our food is fresh with a short shelf life, and many people, (the poor, the urban populations) can't store a bunch of meat in a freezer. Many people simply can't shop and store for weeks or months into the future. We need to think about supplying the military-an army marches on its stomach and we have at least 1.5 million soldiers and sailors to feed, as well as their families.

My Dad opened a grocery store and food locker in the late 1940s. He had a big walk in freezer, full of metal drawers, with locks. He rented the drawers to his customers. They filled them with meat and frozen products and they could either come to the store and go in, or call and one of the employees would go to the locker and take out what the person wanted. It was immensely popular, but as home freezers got popular, the service was used less and less. My Dad at first reduced the size of the freezer and expanded shelf space in the store, finally stopped offering it. I saw other stores and heard people refer to a Mom and Pop grocery as the locker, a throwback to this food storage concept. Maybe some enterprising people can bring back food lockers, so families have some long term options. The way things are going, we're going to be living in crisis for a long time to come. If we can create some food security, we'll have the energy to think of long-term solutions to the supply chain problems, protecting workers, ensuring food safety.

traitor is cutting the legs off our country. He needs to be removed right now, and all of his henchmen as well. We are fighting against our allies, disease, and now looking at starvation. I know we can overcome all of this, but with traitor and his cohorts in power, we are going to keep fighting with one hand tied behind our backs.

[murielm99]

20. I live in a pork producing county.

There is some of that here already, on a limited basis. I buy only a few things at the farmers' markets in the summer. I know the producers. Maybe this year I will buy more.

We have some farmers here who raise organic beef and chicken. As I understand it, they have always had waiting lists. I may ask some of my neighbors about these farms.

Of course this will be more expensive. Not everyone will benefit.

[Chellee]

12. Or, you could just not eat food from Tyson.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/4/22/21228158/coronavirus-pandemic-risk-factory-farming-meat

Some experts have hypothesized that the novel coronavirus made the jump from animals to humans in China’s wet markets, just like SARS before it. Unsurprisingly, many people are furious that the markets, which were closed in the immediate wake of the outbreak in China, are already reopening. It’s easy to point the finger at these “foreign” places and blame them for generating pandemics. But doing that ignores one crucial fact: The way people eat all around the world — including in the US — is a major risk factor for pandemics, too.

That’s because we eat a ton of meat, and the vast majority of it comes from factory farms. In these huge industrialized facilities that supply more than 90 percent of meat globally — and around 99 percent of America’s meat — animals are tightly packed together and live under harsh and unsanitary conditions.

“When we overcrowd animals by the thousands, in cramped football-field-size sheds, to lie beak to beak or snout to snout, and there’s stress crippling their immune systems, and there’s ammonia from the decomposing waste burning their lungs, and there’s a lack of fresh air and sunlight — put all these factors together and you have a perfect-storm environment for the emergence and spread of disease,“ said Michael Greger, the author of Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching.

To make matters worse, selection for specific genes in farmed animals (for desirable traits like large chicken breasts) has made these animals almost genetically identical. That means that a virus can easily spread from animal to animal without encountering any genetic variants that might stop it in its tracks. As it rips through a flock or herd, the virus can grow even more virulent.

Greger puts it bluntly: “If you actually want to create global pandemics, then build factory farms.”

(snip)

[renate]

19. yeah. I'm not a fan of Bill Maher--he's too impressed by himself--but I love what he said about meat

On his show last week he did a segment basically saying that factory farms in America are as disgusting and overcrowded and inhumane as the wet markets in China. Even if there are a few more human-welfare-oriented safeguards here in terms of food safety, it seems inexcusable to criticize wet markets and then let American farms off the hook.

[GulfCoast66]

24. America slaughter houses are worse. Way worse.

I’ve been to both. Although the Shanghai wet markets and other big cities probably don’t compere to those in more provincial places.

And although in the wet markets I saw some unseemly things, I also saw plenty I would eat. Actually bought fresh(live) seafood and had it fried up at a local restaurant.

But in the wet markets, only the animals go thru hell. In American Slaughter houses, the animals and the slave like immigrants labor go thru hell.

[dixiegrrrrl]

22. Exactly the same thing with mono-culture.

God, I remember reading Rodale and Mother Earth News and Wendall Berry, back in the early '70's, as they talked about the dangers of having massive areas of farms growing only 1 crop.
Various plant diseases could flourish, wiping out most of the crop at one time.

and so it did....anyone remember the recent banana crop failures, where they had to change to another variety ( which does not taste like the one we grew up with..).

Older I get, the less mass produced meat I eat, it's seemed to be a natural transition.

[Owl]

13. Maybe operate slowly with 1/4th the people?

Give workers much, much more separation?

[Coventina]

14. Well, this really lays bare the horror of factory farming animals for slaughter.

Glad to be a vegetarian!!!

[DBoon]

15. Time to try some delicious vegan dishes

Someone at Tyson thinks animals slaughtered at corporate factories is the only type of food.

[patphil]

16. This is the perfect industry for implementing full testing and constant monitoring.

First verify the health state of all the workers, and provide them with adequate ppe's.
Then open up the factories and continually monitor the workers to minimize risk.
These processing plants may have to operate below normal capacity to do this.
It's part of the food chain, and needs to be kept healthy and operational.

If we want a staged opening, and are serious about doing it safely, this would be a good place to start. Again, the governors will have to take the lead here, since the federal government has proven itself useless in directing any efforts to get us through this pandemic.

[Steelrolled]

21. You are right

and I believe the operators of these processing plants will implement good processes, when they have no other choice.

[nitpicker]

17. The problem is in the processing plants

Because the workers, despite masks and gloves and plexiglass shields and standing six feet from each other (in a plant publicity photo) are standing there all day long, and threatened with firing if they try to take off while sick.

So somebody goes to the six-county Walmart that everyone shops at, employees and others get sick, sick workers show up at the plant...

I've been using state websites daily to track state infections and deaths, and roughly weekly the several counties in a state with the most cases (except RI, which effectively I consider as a whole). There have been noticeable spikes, mostly associated with meat processing plants that are mostly in the Midwest (WI MN ND SD IA NE KS). Now spikes are showing up in chicken-processing counties on the Delmarva Eastern Shore, and on down I/95-85 through NC, SC and GA, probably other states too.

((There have been other major spikes at prisons in MI OH TN and no doubt elsewhere, probably though the similar route of the staff all shopping at the same places.))

[nitpicker]

18. And almost all products that contain meat get the meat from meat processors

Think about that the next time you're trying to look for a frozen dinner (Birds Eye had to shut one of its plants), or opening up a can of soup/pasta with meat/etc.

[misanthrope]

26. This only the latest clarion to our perversion

Our approach to meat, the frequency of consumption, the horrors of factory farming, their toxic byproducts, industrial slaughterhouses like something from Dante's mind, the idle wasting of resources needs to be shelved. That all these animals could be "depopulated" with their deaths serving no purpose whatsoever -- at least their predecessors provided sustenance -- is completely awful. All the resources that went into their lives were ultimately for nothing.

Now, Trump seems determined to "keep these open." We all know why. Because the workers at risk are low on the socio-economic ladder. That a great deal of them are documented and undocumented immigrants is probably a bonus in his mind.