Chinese-owned Smithfield Foods shutters two more meat processing plants in Missouri and Wisconsin

Chinese-owned meat packing giant Smithfield Foods has closed two additional plants in the U.S. after coronavirus outbreaks, raising concerns about the American food supply chain. Smithfield announced the closures of packing plants in Cudahy, Wisconsin and Martin City, Missouri on Wednesday, days after its Sioux Falls, South Dakota plant was indefinitely shuttered. The Sioux Falls plant, where 518 employees and 120 of their family members have tested positive for coronavirus, is now the largest single source of cases in the U.S., and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention has dispatched a critical response team to the scene. Smithfield said in a statement that a 'small number of employees' at both the Cudahy and the Martin City plants had tested positive for the virus, without offering further details. The Cudahy plant, which processes dry sausage and bacon, will be closed for two weeks, during which time employees will continue to be paid and rigorous deep cleaning and sanitization will be repeated. Union members at the Cudahy plant criticized the company last month for continuing to operate after the union said two employees tested positive for coronavirus. The Martin City plant, which produces spiral and smoked hams, receives raw materials from the shuttered Sioux Falls plant, and will not be able to reopen until officials clear the upstream plant to reopen, the company said. Sullivan said that Smithfield has implemented rigorous protocols to try to protect workers, use of thermal scanning, personal protective equipment and physical barriers, and that the company tells any employee who feels sick to remain home on paid sick leave. The company's Sioux Falls plant, which employs some 3,700 workers, is a massive food processing hub supplying Americans with nearly 130 million servings of food per week, or about 18 million servings per day. The plant processes roughly five percent of the U.S. pork supply. Smithfield, which is based in Virginia, was purchased by Chinese meat processing giant WH Group in 2013 for $4.72 billion...MORE