American food company Smithfield announced that its Sioux Falls, South Dakota facility, one of the largest pork processing facilities in the US, will remain closed until further notice, due to COVID-19 concerns. The plant represents 4%-5% of US pork production, supplying nearly 130 million servings of food per week, or about 18 million servings per day. It employs 3,700 people, as more than 550 independent family farmers supply the plant.
While it will continue to compensate its employees for the next two weeks, Smithfield says it will resume operations in Sioux Falls once a further direction is received from local, state and federal officials. “The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply. It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our plants are not running. These facility closures will also have severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain, first and foremost our nation’s livestock farmers. These farmers have nowhere to send their animals,” Kenneth M. Sullivan, president, and chief executive officer for Smithfield said. “Unfortunately, COVID-19 cases are now ubiquitous across our country. The virus is afflicting communities everywhere. The agriculture and food sectors have not been immune. Numerous plants across the country have COVID-19 positive employees. We have continued to run our facilities for one reason: to sustain our nation’s food supply during this pandemic. We believe it is our obligation to help feed the country, now more than ever. We have a stark choice as a nation: we are either going to produce food or not, even in the face of COVID-19.”
According to the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), there is no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with the transmission of COVID-19.