User:Cullen328/sandbox/Meat

Summary
By September 13, at least 42,534 workers at meatpacking plants had contracted the coronavirus, and at least 203 had died. COVID-19 cases had been discovered in at least 494 meatpacking plants.

Foster Farms
On August 26, the Merced County Health Department ordered the plant in Livingston closed. By that time, 358 workers were confirmed to have the coronavirus, and eight had died. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra stated "Foster Farms’ poultry operation in Livingston, California, has experienced an alarming spread of COVID-19 among its workers. Nobody can ignore the facts: It’s time to hit the reset button on Foster Farms’ Livingston plant." The following day, the California Department of Public Health released a letter stating that Foster Farms has a "legal obligation to comply with public health orders and guidance, as well as an obligation to its workers and to the people of Merced County and surrounding counties and that these obligations compel Foster Farms to immediately comply with the order issued yesterday by the County". The agency reported that "other Foster Farms facilities in multiple counties also are experiencing outbreaks".

On August 13, Gurpal Samra, the mayor of Livingston, California, announced that Merced County officials had informed him that 217 workers at the local Foster Farms chicken processing plant had COVID-19, and that two workers had died. According to Samra, "There are no guidelines, no books, no manuals, on how to deal with this anywhere at the state level. Even the federal government is in disarray. So Merced County Health, who’s never had to deal with this either, is trying to find the best way to work with it." On August 18, the Merced County Public Health Department confirmed that over 300 workers were infected and that seven workers had died. The plant employs over 3,700 people.

Central Valley Meat Company
The Central Valley Meat Company operates a beef packing plant in Hanford, California that processes 1,500 cattle per day. As of May 13, local public health officials reported that 182 workers at the plant tested positive for coronavirus.

Ruiz Foods
Ruiz Foods is a manufacturer of frozen Mexican food items, including chicken burritos and beef burritos, sold under the Old Monterey brand name. It is the largest manufacturer of frozen burritos in the United States. As of May 13, 174 workers at the company's plants in Dinuba, California and Tulare, California had tested positive for coronavirus.

Perdue Farms
Perdue Farms is the third largest producer of chickens in the United States. In June, the company reported that 58 workers at its plant in Salisbury, Maryland had tested positive for coronavirus and that two workers had died. The plant employs 593 workers.

Amick Farms
Amick Farms is a subsidiary of OSI Group that operates a chicken processing plant in Hurlock, Maryland that employs 1,362 workers. On June 12, Maryland health officials reported that 150 workers had tested positive for coronavirus and that three workers had died.

Quality Pork Processors
Quality Pork Processors operates a hog slaughterhouse in Austin, Minnesota that supplies the Hormel factory in that city. The plant employs 1,300 workers. On June 5, the company reported that 170 of its workers had tested positive for coronavirus.

Long Prairie Packing Company
The Long Prairie Packing Company operates a beef processing plant in Long Prairie, Minnesota that employs 500 to 600 workers. The company is owned by American Foods Group. On June 9, the Minnesota Department of Health announced that 249 workers at the plant had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Overview
The meatpacking industry in the United States employs 474,000 workers, of whom 194,000 are categorized as frontline meatpacking workers in slaughterhouses and processing plants. 44.4% of meatpacking workers are Hispanic, and 25.2% are Black. 51.5% of the frontline meatpacking workers are immigrants, compared to 17% of the general workforce in the United States.

By mid-June, more than 250 workers at the Tama plant had tested positive for the coronavirus.

In mid March, Kenneth Sullivan, the CEO of Smithfield Foods, wrote to Pete Ricketts, the governor of Nebraska, expressing "grave concerns" that calls for social distancing was a threat to the reliability of the food production workforce, adding that "Social distancing is a nicety that makes sense only for people with laptops."

By June 6, at least 20,400 coronavirus infections were recorded in 216 meatpacking plants in 33 states, according to analysis by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, in cooperation with USA Today. At least 74 workers have died.

Investigation
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/25/meatpackers-prices-coronavirus-antitrust-275093

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/business/coronavirus-meatpacking-plants-cases.html

Rantoul Foods
As of May 20, at least 15,300 workers have been infected with COVID-19 at 192 different meatpacking plants in the United States, based on ongoing reporting by the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and USA Today. At least 63 of those workers have died from the disease.

Rantoul Foods operates a pork processing plant in Rantoul, Illinois. By May 22, at least 87 Rantoul workers have tested positive for COVID-19.

Seaboard Triumph
As of June 3, 121 employees at the Sioux Falls plant had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Five large pig fams in Midwestern states are also part of the venture. The plant, almost a million square feet in size, processed three million pigs in its first year. A second shift started working in 2018, doubling production to six million pigs a year.

Seaboard Triumph Foods is a joint venture between Seaboard Foods and Triumph Foods, that has operated a pork processing plant in Sioux City, Iowa since 2017.

The facility is reported to be the world's second largest fresh pork plant, and it employs approximately 2,400 workers. On May 11, the company confirmed that 59 workers have tested positive for the coronavirus.

Iowa Premium Beef
At an Iowa Premium Beef plant in Tama, Iowa, it was announced that 258 workers tested positive for the coronavirus. That represented 39% of the workers tested.

Seaboard Foods
Seaboard Foods is a major American vertically integrated pork producer. On May 4, the company announced that 116 workers at its plant in Guymon, Oklahoma had tested positive for COVID-19. The company has about 2,700 workers in Texas County, Oklahoma, where the Guymon plant is located.

Triumph Foods
By May 16, at least 490 cases of COVID-19 were confirmed at the plant in Saint Joseph.

Stampede Meat
By May 21, at least 57 workers at the Sunland Park plant had tested positive for COVID-19.

Stampede Meat is a company that operates four meat processing plants in the Chicago area, and one in New Mexico. On May 5, local health authorities reported that five workers at a Stampede Meat plant in Sunland Park, New Mexico had tested positive for the coronavirus.

Koch Foods
Koch Foods is a major U S. chicken processor, specializing in "small birds". On Friday, May 15, Koch Foods confirmed that 11 of the workers at its Chattanooga, Tennessee plant had been diagnosed with COVID-19.

Pilgrim's Pride
Pilgrim's Pride is a subsidiary of JBS-USA that operates chicken processing plants. In late April, an outbreak began at the Pilgrim's Pride plant in Lufkin, Texas. On May 8, a worker at the Lufkin plant was found dead in her home after being diagnosed with Covid-19. After the West Virginia National Guard conducted coronavirus tests of part of the workforce at the Pilgrim's Pride plant in Moorefield, West Virginia, it was announced that 18 workers had tested positive. The plant employs 940 workers and 520 of them were tested. By May 11, 194 Covid-19 cases had been diagnosed among workers at the Pilgrim's Pride plant in Cold Spring, Minnesota, which employs about 1,100 workers. That same day, 75 to 85 cars filled with workers drove around the plant, honking horns and demanding over a loudspeaker that it be closed for two weeks. At least one worker has tested positive at the Pilgrim's Pride plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and other workers have tested positive at the company's plant in Timberville, Virginia, where dozens of workers protested in early April, although the company has declined to release the number of cases there.

Indiana Packers
Indiana Packers is a pork processing company that is a joint venture between Japanese companies Mitsubishi Corporation and Itoham Foods. The company's main plant is located in Delphi, Indiana and it also operates a ham plant in Holland Township, Michigan. After a coronavirus outbreak, the company closed its Delphi plant on April 24. During the closure, 301 workers tested positive for coronavirus in a plant that employs about 2300 people. At full capacity, this plant can slaughter and process 17,000 hogs a day. The Dephi plant reopened on May 7.

Overview
By May 5, over 10,000 meatpacking plant workers in 29 states and working at 170 plants had tested positive for the coronavirus. At least 45 of those meat industry workers had died.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pork-braun-idUSKBN22H2Q6

By May 5, Wendy's had stopped serving beef hamburgers at about 20% of its 5,500 U.S. restaurants. The company only uses fresh but not frozen ground beef, and the shortages were concentrated in states near where major beef processing plants had closed. Some locations were posting locally printed signs encouraging customers to buy chicken sandwiches instead. The company said "some of our menu items may be temporarily limited at some restaurants."

Other regional grocery store chains such as Price Chopper Supermarkets and Tops Friendly Markets followed suit in restricting meat purchases.

Grocery store chains Kroger and Wegmans imposed similar restrictions on customer meat purchases.

On May 4, Tyson Foods informed its investors that U.S. pork production had declined 50%. The same day, Costco announced restrictions on sales of fresh meat, limiting customers to purchasing no more than three items among poultry, beef and pork and products.

As April ended, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a report stating that by April 27, at least 4,913 meat and poultry plant workers had Covid-19. Cases were reported in 115 plants located in 19 states, and at least 20 people had died.

In response to Trump's announcement, Marc Perrone of the United Food and Commercial Workers released a statement noting that "at least 20 meatpacking workers have tragically died from coronavirus while more than 5,000 workers have been hospitalized or are showing symptoms," going on to say, "We urge the Administration to immediately enact clear and enforceable safety standards that compel all meatpacking companies to provide the highest level of protective equipment through access to the federal stockpile of PPE, ensure daily testing is available for workers and their communities, enforce physical distancing at all plants, and provide full paid sick leave for any workers who are infected. Additionally, to protect the food supply and ensure these safety standards for workers are enforced, these plants must be constantly monitored by federal inspectors and workers must have access to representation to ensure their rights are not violated.

On April 28, Donald Trump announced that he intends to issue an executive order under the Defense Production Act mandating that plants producing beef, pork, poultry and eggs stay open. White House General Counsel Pat Cipollone consulted with various companies "to design a federal mandate to keep the plants open and to provide them additional virus testing capacity as well as protective gear," according to Bloomberg News. Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union commented, "We only wish that this administration cared as much about the lives of working people as it does about meat, pork and poultry products."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-24/meat-threats-grow-with-first-brazil-shutdown-u-s-turkey-halt

UFCW:

"The union, in a letter Thursday to Vice President Mike Pence, also said it wants the U.S. Department of Agriculture to stop issuing line speed waivers that allow plants to increase the pace of production. The agency has issued more waivers in the last two weeks than in all of 2019, the union said."

"In Illinois, Aurora Packing, in North Aurora, shut down for two weeks earlier this month and Tyson’s beef facility in Joslin closed for five days"

Christine McCracken, a meat analyst at Rabobank, said that U.S. meat production had declined 20% by late April, and predicted that wholesale meat prices would rise. She said that especially popular items like ground beef were likely to increase in price.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/23/meat-shortage-coronavirus-shutdowns-205689

At least 137 USDA meat inspectors have tested positive for coronavirus, and 704 others have stopped working due to high risk health conditions.

more than 3,400 reported positive cases tied to meatpacking facilities across 62 plants in 23 states, and at least 17 reported worker deaths

Two inspectors for the United States Department of Agriculture have died of Covid-19 as of April 23. One of those inspectors was based in the Chicago office of the Food Safety Inspection Service and was on a "patrol assignment" visiting various meat processing facilities each day to conduct inspections.

According to a report by Bloomberg News on April 23, "Combined pork, beef and poultry supplies in cold-storage facilities now stand equal to roughly two weeks of total American meat production. With most plant shutdowns lasting about 14 days for safety reasons, that raises the potential for deficits." In the same report, Dennis Smith of Archer Financial Services, a subsidiary of Archer Daniels Midland, predicted that "Meat shortages will be occurring two weeks from now in the retail outlets," adding that "There is simply no spot pork available. The big box stores will get their needs met, many others will not."

Bell & Evans
The company processes organic, antibiotic-free chicken products sold through Whole Foods.

Bell & Evans, founded in 1894, is the oldest poultry brand in the United States. The company employs 1,700 workers at its modern chicken processing plant in Fredericksburg, Pennsylvania and is one of the biggest employers in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania.

One worker and the spouse of another worker employed at the plant have died of Covid-19. Indications are that there is an outbreak at the plant, but the company has not released any statistics. On May 1, 30 cars conducted a mock funeral procession outside the plant. Patty Torres, an activist with Make the Road Pennsylvania, said "We’re calling on Bell & Evans to shut down the plant immediately and clean their plant completely and pay their employees fully … before (COVID-19) claims more lives and devastates more families".

Foster Farms
On April 22, Foster Farms reported that an employee at one of its two plants in Fresno, California had tested positive for coronavirus. Those two plants employ about 3,000 workers.

OSI Group
OSI Group is an American meat processing company that operates 65 plants in 17 countries.

On April 20, OSI Group closed a plant in Chicago, Illinois. Thirty workers tested positive at the 500 employee plant, which makes beef, pork, chicken and turkey products. The company announced their intention to install body temperature monitoring systems for workers.

Tyson
Tyson Turns to Robot Butchers, Spurred by Coronavirus Outbreaks - WSJ

https://www.wsj.com/articles/meatpackers-covid-safety-automation-robots-coronavirus-11594303535

On June 26, Tyson Foods announced that 371 workers at their chicken processing plant in Noel, Missouri had tested positive for the coronavirus. The company tested 1,142 employees at the plant and 291 tested positive. A further 80 Noel workers tested positive in separate tests conducted outside the plant.

On June 25, a lawsuit was filed in Black Hawk County, Iowa district court against Tyson Foods and senior company executives, including Chairman John H. Tyson and CEO Noel White. The suit was filed on behalf of the families of three workers at Tyson's Waterloo, Iowa plant who died of COVID-19. The lawsuit accuses Tyson of lying to its workers in the early days of the pandemic. The lawsuit states "Tyson intended by these false representations to deceive workers in the Waterloo facility ... and to induce them to continue working despite the uncontrolled COVID-19 outbreak at the plant and the health risks associated with working", and describes the company's behavior as an "incorrigible, willful and wanton disregard for workplace safety”.

On June 1, Tyson announced that 815 workers have tested positive for coronavirus at its pork plant in Storm Lake, Iowa among approximately 2,300 workers employed there. The company also reported that 224 workers tested positive at a beef and pork plant in Council Bluffs, Iowa. That factory employs about 1,500 people workers.

County health officials reported that 1,000 workers at the Waterloo plant had tested positive  had tested positive by early May, more than a third of the 2,800 workers employed there. Five of those workers have died of COVID-19.

By June 12, over 25 Tyson workers had died of COVID-19.

On June 21, the government of China announced that it was suspending imports of chicken from a Tyson factory. The company confirmed that the affected facility was its Berry Street plant in Springdale, Arkansas. Earlier in June, 227 workers tested positive for the coronavirus at that plant. Tyson announced that 481 workers had tested positive at its various facilities in northwest Arkansas. That represented 13% of its 3,748 workers in that region.

On April 11, a complaint was filed with the Iowa Occupational Safety and Health Administration about conditions at the Tyson Foods plant in Perry, Iowa. It was claimed that employees worked "elbow to elbow" and that coronavirus was spreading. It took Iowa OSHA nine days to ask Tyson to respond and eight days until the company replied. On April 28, Iowa OSHA said the the company's voluntary efforts were "satisfactory", and the case was closed without inspecting the plant. One week later, public health officials announced that 730 workers at the Perry plant had tested positive for coronavirus, and that represented 58% of the workforce of 1,250 people.

On May 20, multiple employees informed reporters that 270 workers at a Tyson plant in Sherman, Texas had tested positive for COVID-19. The company confirmed that one worker at the plant had died.

By May 20, 570 workers at the Wilkesboro plant had tested positive for COVID-19.

By May 16, 277 workers at the Wallula plant has been infected with the coronavirus, and three had died.

Tyson eventually re-opened its Waterloo plant after a closure of about two weeks. By then, over 1000 workers at the Waterloo plant had tested positive for the coronavirus. On May 17, an auto rally was held outside the plant, to support its workers. Signs in many languages spoken immigrant workers were displayed.

By May 12, Tyson and local public health officials reported that 212 workers at the Madison plant had tested positive for coronavirus.

At the Tyson plant in Amarillo, Texas, the Texas National Guard assisted in coronavirus testing of the 3,587 workers. When 1,380 test results were available on May 14, 410 workers had tested positive.

By May 11, 4,585 cases of Covid-19 and 18 deaths were linked to Tyson plants in 15 states.

In early May, economist Steve Meyer, with agricultural risk management company Kerns and Associates, estimated that Tyson's pork production had declined 74%.

On May 5, local health officials announced that 730 out of 1,250 workers at Tyson's plant in Perry, Iowa had tested positive for coronavirus. The local newspaper called the 58% positive infection rate "jaw-dropping".

Christopher Leonard, author of The Meat Racket, a book about Tyson Foods and the meat industry, said that the crisis has resulted from concentration of the meat supply into a few very large slaughterhouses has created "the most narrow bottleneck in American agribusiness."

By May 1, the count of workers who have tested positive for coronavirus at the Logansport plant stood at 890.

Eight workers at a Tyson chicken processing plant in Portland, Maine have tested positive for coronavirus, and on April 28, state health officials called for all 400 workers to be tested for the virus. Tyson agreed, and said that it is considering closing the plant.

On April 27, public health officials in Dakota County, Nebraska, which has a population of about 20,000 people, announced that 608 residents had tested positive for coronavirus, a rate about 40 times higher than the Omaha area. The county's biggest employer by far is the Tyson beef packing plant in Dakota City, Nebraska, which employs about 4,300 people. One worker at that plant has died of Covid-19, and local officials believe that the outbreak is centered in the Tyson plant.

On April 22, Tyson announced the closure of a pork processing plant in Logansport, Indiana that employed more than 2,200 workers after 146 workers tested positive. The president of the Indiana Farm Bureau said that the organization is "extremely concerned about the closure of the Tyson pork processing facility. This is a devastating blow to the pork producers who sell hogs to Tyson."

On April 23, Tyson announced that a beef processing plant in Wallula, Washington was closing. The plant employed 1,400 workers. Local public health officials announced that over 90 workers had tested positive for coronavirus, and one had died. Tyson executive Steve Stouffer said, "Unfortunately, the closure will mean reduced food supplies and presents problems to farmers who have no place to take their livestock. It’s a complicated situation across the supply chain.

Tyson finally closed the Waterloo plant on April 22. According to an Associated Press report, the company said the shutdown "would deny a vital market to hog farmers and further disrupt the nation's meat supply".

American Foods Group
American Foods Group is the 5th largest beef processor in the United States.

The American Foods Group plant in Green Bay, Wisconsin had 203 workers test positive for the coronavirus by May 1.

National Beef
By mid-June, more than 250 workers at the Tama plant had tested positive for the coronavirus.

National Beef is a large beef packing company which is controlled by Marfrig, Brazil's second largest food processing company A plant owned by National Beef in Tama, Iowa closed for a week after 177 workers were diagnosed with coronavirus at a facility that employed over 500 workers. The plant reopened on April 20.

Kansas Health Secretary Lee Norman reported on April 24 that 250 workers at the state's six meatpacking plants had Covid-19. Over an 11 day period in mid-April, Ford County, Kansas, where both National Beef and Cargill operate plants in Dodge City, went from 16 coronavirus cases to 288 diagnosed cases and Seward County, Kansas, which has a National Beef plant in Liberal, went from six cases to 125.

Several
At least eight workers at a Tyson plant in Madison, Nebraska had tested positive for coronavirus by April 20, according to local public health officials. Workers have also tested positive at other Tyson plants in Lexington, Nebraska and Dakota City, Nebraska.

By April 21, 237 cases of coronavirus were associated with the JBS plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, according to local health officials.

Beef
According to the Daily Livestock Report published by Steiner Consulting, slaughter of cattle in the United States declined 19% in the second and third weeks of April, 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.

Allen Harim
Allen Harim is a regional chicken processor based in Delaware, owned by the Harim Group of South Korea.

On April 8, the company announced that it would begin "depopulating flocks in the field" due to a labor shortage caused by the pandemic. The company is unable to process its normal volume because about 50% of its employees are not reporting to work. About two million chickens were to be killed and disposed of at local farms in Delaware and Maryland, and would not reach the market.

Cargill
By June 18, nearly 100 workers at the Fort Morgan plant had tested positive for coronavirus, and four had died.

By May 18, local public health officials confirmed that 68 workers at the Cargill plant in Fort Morgan has COVUD-19, and three workers had died.

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/04/19/jbs-cargill-raise-coronavirus/

Conagra Brands
Conagra Brands is an American company that manufactures packaged foods.

On April 17, Conagra closed a plant in Marshall, Missouri after about 20 employees tested positive for coronavirus. The plant, which employed about 700 workers, manufactured frozen meals including chicken and turkey pot pies sold under the Banquet Foods brand name.

Hormel
On April 24, Hormel announced the closure of two plants in Willmar, Minnesota after 14 workers tested positive for coronavirus. These Jennie-O turkey plants employed over 1,200 workers.

Hormel Foods, well known for its canned pork SPAM product, also processes other pork products as well as beef, lamb and chicken.

On April 21, Hormel announced the closure of three meat processing plants, including its Alma Foods plant in Alma, Kansas. That plant employs about 100 workers and at least one worker tested positive for the coronavirus.

On April 18, local health officials shut down a Hormel Foods plant in Rochelle, Illinois that employed 800 people after at least 24 workers tested positive for coronavirus.

On April 21, Hormel announced the closure of its Don Miguel Foods factory in Dallas, Texas, which is a joint venture with a Mexico City company, Herdez Del Fuerte. The plant made pork, beef and chicken burritos and tacos, and employed about 700 workers.

JBS
https://www.greeleytribune.com/union-hosts-memorial-with-procession-for-6-jbs-workers-killed-by-virus

On June 28, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 organized a memorial event in Greeley to commemorate the six workers at the JBS plant who had died of COVID-19. U.S. Senator Michael Bennett was among thise who gave speeches outside the union hall. Afterwards, a car caravan of family members, plant workers and supporters drove around the city, passing two billboards with photos of the workers who died.

On June 24, JBS sent a cease and desist letter to United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, which represents the workers at the Greeley plant, saying that the union "has adopted a strategy of generating negative media attention and public opinion". The union local's president, Kim Cordova, replied, "Unfortunately your cease and desist letter, threatening to stifle our voice, and those of our members, as well as pursuing claims for unfounded, speculative, and unrecoverable damages is rife with numerous inaccuracies, suppositions, and erroneous conclusions I won’t spend time rebutting in their entirety" adding that her statements were "nothing more than the exercise of our Constitutional and legal rights, regardless of how you improperly characterize them."

On June 8, the local health department reported that 287 workers at a JBS plant in Hyrum, Utah had tested positive for coronavirus. The facility employs about 1,400 workers.

In April, 34 workers at a JBS plant in Marshalltown, Iowa tested positive for COVID-19, and then the company stopped reporting new cases. The plant employs 2,400 workers. On May 15, a 62 year old worker at the plant died of COVID-19, one week before his scheduled retirement date.

As of May 18, 321 workers at the Greeley plant have tested positive for COVID-19, and eight of those workers have died.

The ABC News team confirmed that JBS had promised to test all of the plant's employees but did not keep their promise, after the first day of testing revealed that a significant percentage of plant managers and supervisors were positive for coronavirus.

On April 22, JBS announced that the Greeley plant would reopen on April 24, after being closed for two weeks. When local ABC News reporters approached the plant while investigating working conditions, security guards working for JBS responded agressively, threatening to break their camera even though they were on public property. Local union president Kim Cordova said "I think the workers are being sacrificed," adding, "I think that this could potentially be a death sentence."

Public health officials announced on April 22 that 147 cases of coronavirus were associated with a JBS meatpacking plant in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

On April 26, JBS announced that the Green Bay plant, which employed 1,200 workers, was being closed.

Smithfield
https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/business-journal/2020/07/02/covid-south-dakota-smithfield-plant-pushing-stop-osha-subpoena/5368116002/

The largest pork processing plant in the world is the Smithfield facility in Tar Heel, North Carolina. The plant employs 4,500 workers. On May 1, local health officials announced that 53 of the workers at the plant has tested positive for coronavirus. By May 7, that number had grown to 76 workers infected.

Smithfield owns the Farmer John plant in Vernon, California, which makes bacon, sausage and Dodger Dogs, mostly for the Southern California market. On May 22, a local health official reported that at least 140 workers at the plant had tested positive for coronavirus.

After Nebraska National Guard troops increased testing in Crete, Nebraska, local health officials and the mayor announced that the local Smithfield pork processing plant would close on April 29. There were at least 47 confirmed cases of Covid-19 among workers at the plant, which employed about 2,000 workers.

On April 24, Smithfield announced the closure of its plant in Monmouth, Illinois after a coronavirus outbreak. The factory employed 1,700 workers and produced 3% of  the fresh pork for the U. S. market.

On April 23, a 15 page report was issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that concluded that language barriers exacerbated the spread of the virus in the Sioux Falls plant where about 40 languages are spoken. In addition to English, the top ten languages spoken by workers include "Spanish, Kunama, Swahili, Nepali, Tigrinya, Amharic, French, Oromo and Vietnamese." When workers showed symptoms of illness, they were sent home with information packets in English only. The CDC also reported that workers were offered a $500.00 "responsibility bonus" if they missed no work during the month of April.

A Smithfield spokesperson blamed the "large immigrant population" at the Sioux Falls plant for the outbreak, commenting that "living circumstances in certain cultures are different than they are with your traditional American family", rejecting charges that the company had failed to properly protect its workers against the pandemic.

Texas
On April 21, local health officials reported that they are investigating a coronavirus outbreak at a JBS plant in rural Moore County, Texas, described as a "massive meatpacking plant, which processes a significant portion of the nation’s beef". Moore County has one of the highest rates of coronavirus cases in Texas.

On April 21, Tyson announced the closure of a plant in Center, Texas, which is located in Shelby County, Texas, a rural county with a rate of coronavirus infections about four times higher than the state average. A local physician reported that over half of the county's cases were associated with the Tyson facility.

Wayne Farms
On May 14, it was reported that "a small number" of Covid-19 cases are associated with a Wayne Farms plant in Dobson, North Carolina. Over 500 workers are employed at that plant.

Wayne Farms is a chicken processing company and a subsidiary of ContiGroup Companies of Belgium.

A Wayne Farms plant in Albertville, Alabama is continuing production at reduced rates after the company disclosed that 75 tested positive and one had died.