Cemetery employees fill in the grave of JBS USA meat packing plant employee Saul Sanchez on April 15, 2020 at Greeley, Colorado, following his death from COVID-19. (Photo: Reuters/Jim Urquhart)

Trump orders U.S. meat processing plants to stay open

Advocates call for protective equipment for plant workers

Washington/Chicago | Reuters — President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered meat-processing plants to stay open to protect the food supply in the United States, despite concerns about coronavirus outbreaks, drawing a backlash from unions that said at-risk workers required more protection. With concerns about food shortages and supply chain disruptions, Trump issued an executive order […] Read more

Hog farmer Mike Patterson walks through one of his barns at Kenyon, Minnesota, about 70 km south of St. Paul, on April 23, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Nicholas Pfosi)

Piglets aborted, chickens gassed as pandemic slams meat sector

"We have to have less hogs somehow"

Chicago | Reuters — With the pandemic hobbling the meat-packing industry, Iowa farmer Al Van Beek had nowhere to ship his full-grown pigs to make room for the 7,500 piglets he expected from his breeding operation. The crisis forced a decision that still troubles him: He ordered his employees to give injections to the pregnant […] Read more


(Nadezhda_Nesterova/iStock/Getty Images)

Vancouver health officials shut poultry processor

COVID-19 hits at least 28 employees

Health officials in Vancouver have closed a federally inspected poultry plant in that city after confirming an outbreak of COVID-19 so far affecting over two dozen employees. The public health arm of Vancouver Coastal Health, the regional health authority for the greater Vancouver area, on Tuesday declared a COVID-19 outbreak among staff at United Poultry […] Read more

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks in the House of Commons on April 20, 2020. (Photo: Reuters/Blair Gable)

Canada sees no beef shortage, but prices may rise due to coronavirus

JBS plant at Brooks dials back to one shift

Ottawa/Winnipeg | Reuters –– The Canadian government is not expecting a beef shortage despite the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus in certain meat-packing plants, though prices may rise, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Tuesday. Trudeau added that beef producers are placing a priority on supplying the Canadian market before exporting products. Canada, one of […] Read more


(Dave Bedard photo)

U.S. announces coronavirus aid for farmers, food buys for poor

Direct payments, mass purchases planned

Chicago | Reuters — President Donald Trump on Friday announced a $19 billion relief program to help U.S. farmers cope with the impact of the coronavirus, including $16 billion in direct payments to producers and mass purchases of meat, dairy, vegetables and other products (all figures US$). The U.S. Agriculture Department is partnering with regional […] Read more

Family members of longtime JBS USA meat packing plant employee Saul Sanchez gather April 10, 2020 at his Greeley, Colorado home after his death from COVID-19. (Photo: Reuters/Jim Urquhart)

‘Elbow to elbow:’ North America’s meat plant workers fall ill, walk off jobs

Supply chains struggling to keep pace with surging demand

Chicago/Winnipeg | Reuters — At a Wayne Farms chicken processing plant in Alabama, workers recently had to pay the company 10 U.S. cents a day to buy masks to protect themselves from the COVID-19 coronavirus, according to a meat inspector. In Colorado, nearly a third of the workers at a JBS USA beef plant stayed […] Read more


(Scott Bauer photo courtesy ARS/USDA)

Low-path H7N3 bird flu believed to have gone high-path in U.S.

High-path H7N3 found in South Carolina turkeys

A low-pathogenicity (“low-path”) strain of H7N3 avian influenza that recently turned up in turkeys in the southeastern U.S. appears to have gone high-path. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) on Thursday confirmed highly-pathogenic H7N3 avian flu in a commercial turkey flock in Chesterfield County, in northern South Carolina. “It […] Read more

(Dave Bedard photo)

Maple Leaf poultry plant shuts for ‘deep cleaning’

COVID-19 found in three workers at Brampton facility

One of two Maple Leaf Foods plants at Brampton, Ont. has gone into shutdown mode for “deep cleaning” in the wake of three cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus among its workers. Toronto-based Maple Leaf announced Wednesday that operations at the company’s Kennedy Road poultry slaughter and packing plant in Brampton are suspended “while we complete […] Read more


The big question facing the beef industry and the economy as a whole is how quickly they will recover after the coronavirus threat has passed.

The cruelty of the coronavirus

Prime Cuts with Steve Kay

The start of the new decade held much promise, whether it was for the global economy or prospects of an even bigger trade with China for North American livestock producers. Much of that promise has been cruelly shattered, at least temporarily, by a new coronavirus (COVID-19) that emerged in central China and made its way […] Read more

(Kriste Sorokaite/iStock/Getty Images)

Pet food investment firm buys Ontario raw food maker

Tollden Farms to join United Raw Pet Foods

A Toronto-area investment firm billed as “the pet industry’s merchant bank” has bought control of its fifth Canadian maker of frozen raw pet foods in three years. Mississauga-based Dane Creek Capital Corp., the 70 per cent controlling shareholder in United Raw Pet Foods, announced Thursday that United Raw has bought Tollden Farms of Kemptville, Ont. […] Read more