Tyson Foods CEO Warns Coronavirus Lockdowns Will Soon Cause Food Shortages, Here’s Why
The COVID-19 shelter-in-place requirements have impacted just about every industry out there. Government-mandated lockdowns have wreaked havoc on specific industries, like restaurants, nail salons, and barbershops for nearly two months straight, while other industries are just now starting to feel the full brunt of them.
The food industry, for one, is now being heavily impacted by a lack of demand, which in turn, is likely going to result in serious food shortages for millions of Americans, not just in the coming weeks, but in the coming months.
What’s Going On?
American dairy farmers have seen milk orders plummet. Schools around the country are major purchasers of milk, so when the government ordered schools to be shut down, the demand for milk took a massive hit. This loss in demand has resulted in millions of gallons of milk being poured out by dairy farms, as they have nobody to sell their milk to.
The impact didn’t just stop there. Because restaurants around the country are shut down and, at best, doing a fraction of normal sales through delivery and carry-out, food distributors have seen orders tank. This has been especially damaging for meat producers.
John Tyson, the chairman of Tyson Foods, recently took out a full-page advertisement in the Sunday edition of The New York Times, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (where Tyson Chicken is based), and The Washington Post, to explain how the food supply chain is breaking.
According to Tyson, the limited food supply has occurred due to a number of reasons. For one, because restaurants are no longer ordering as much meat, meat producers now have product they are unable to sell. Additionally, food processing plants such as Tyson’s have been forced to shut down facilities due to health regulations related to COVID-19. The shortage in food processing plants that are still open to purchase animals has left cattle ranchers and chicken farms with no food companies to sell their animals to.
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Because ranchers are unable to sell their animals, and companies like Tyson are no longer able to process the animals into food, America is about to undergo a massive shortage in meat, according to Tyson. Ranchers are expected to slaughter and euthanize their excess livestock.
A few days prior to John Tyson speaking out, the head of one of the nation’s largest pork supplier stated that his company is shutting down plants due to hundreds of workers contracting COVID-19.
So Where’s The Beef?
So what does this mean for you and your family? Will you still be able to put meat on the table? Yes, there will still be meat options available. You may need to shift to lower-quality frozen meats, though, and some of these meats may not come from the United States. Depending on where you live, there might be local farms that still sell meat. However, this meat will undoubtedly be more expensive. You’ll need to look around for what kind of farms are available in your area.
Regardless, even when the coronavirus shelter-in-place orders end, things won’t go back to normal overnight. It might take weeks, if not months, for food operations to get back up and running. So, be prepared to see empty meat shelves at your local grocery store for a long time.
President Trump is expected to sign a 5-page executive order under the Defense Production Act to compel meat companies such as Tyson Foods to keep their processing plants open amid the coronavirus pandemic. According to CNN, “The President is expected to sign the order after some companies, such as Tyson Foods, were considering only keeping 20% of their facilities open. The vast majority of processing plants could have shut down — which would have reduced processing capacity in the country by as much as 80%.”
Cameron Shizznit is the Content Strategy Director and Co-Founder of The Scoop. Follow Cameron on Twitter @TheScoop_Cam, on Instagram @TheScoop_Cam, and Facebook @TheScoop.Cam.
