Smithfield Foods closes pork plant due to impacts of coronavirus on employees

Smithfield Foods Inc, the world's biggest pork processor, said on Thursday (9 April) it is temporarily closing a plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, because of the impacts of the coronavirus on employees.

10 April 2020

3 minute read

By: The Pig Site

North America

The company will suspend operations in a large section of the pork plant on 11 April and completely shutter it on 12 April and 13 April, after employees tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a statement. This is the latest disruption to the US food supply chain due to the COVID-19 the outbreak.

The plant has a total of 3,700 workers, Smithfield said. It supplies nearly 130 million servings of food per week, or about 18 million servings per day, in the United States, according to the company, which is owned by China's WH Group Ltd.

butchers cut up pieces of pork in a commercial processing plant — Major US meat companies announced on Monday (7 April) that they had shut three facilities that produce pork and beef in Iowa and Pennsylvania in the latest disruption to the country's food supply chain from the coronavirus outbreak

Tyson Foods Inc said on Monday it closed a pork plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa, after more than 24 cases of COVID-19 involving employees at the facility. US beef plants run by JBS USA and National Beef Packing Company have also shut.