Smithfield will start operations at Sioux Falls facility upon receiving the further direction from local, state and federal officials
Smithfield Foods has announced the shut-down of pork processing plant due to COVID-19 outbreak. (Credit: Mogens Petersen from Pixabay)
Smithfield Foods announced that it has indefinitely shut-down its pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, due to COVID-19 outbreak.
Claimed to be one of the largest pork processing facilities in the US, the Sioux Falls facility is said to represent between 4% and 5% of US pork production.
With around 3,700 employees, the Sioux Falls facility distributes around 130 million servings of food per week or about 18 million servings per day.
Sioux Falls facility receives pork from over 550 independent family farmers
According to the company, more than 550 independent family farmers supply the pork for processing at the facility.
Some activity will take place at the plant on Tuesday to process products in inventory in preparation for a full shutdown. The inventory includes millions of servings of protein.
The company will begin operations in Sioux Falls upon receiving further direction from local, state and federal officials.
Smithfield said that it will continue to compensate its employees for the next two weeks and hopes to keep them from joining the ranks of the tens of millions of unemployed Americans across the country.
Smithfield Foods president and CEO Kenneth Sullivan said: “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.”
As per the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), no evidence is witnessed that food or food packaging is associated with the transmission of COVID-19.