Supermarkets Adjust Meat Sections as Coronavirus Cuts Supply

The coronavirus pandemic is cutting into supermarket meat supplies and affecting choices available in meat cases as plant workers get sick and processors struggle to meet surging demand. The pandemic is keeping thousands of meat-plant workers home across the U.S., according to industry officials, leaving work undone and reducing meat production as consumers turn to grocery stores for more of their food amid shutdowns of restaurants, schools and other providers. Those shifts are prompting some meat suppliers to reduce the range of cuts they sell to supermarkets. Others are repurposing meat that ordinarily would go to restaurants. At B&R Stores Inc., a Midwestern grocery chain, meat sales have jumped 30% over the past month, while suppliers are filling only about 75% of meat orders, President Mark Griffin said. In response, B&R is limiting customers to one 10-pound roll of ground beef and offering fewer varieties of leanness. The chain’s deli stations are selling smaller chicken pieces...The reliance of meat processors on thousands of processing-plant workers has left the industry vulnerable to disruption as the coronavirus spreads, and companies and government officials try to balance food production and public health. “If you can’t harvest the livestock, you can’t turn it into food,” said Kenneth Sullivan, chief executive of Smithfield Foods Inc. The company closed two more pork plants Wednesday. The Trump administration is working on a plan to provide Covid-19 tests to meat plants, among other measures. On Wednesday, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue acknowledged the virus’s toll on processing plants and called on companies to follow federal health guidelines, but he assured consumers that the food supply remained strong. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said there have been no known reports of Covid-19 being transmitted by food or food packaging but urged consumers to follow federal hand-washing recommendations and thoroughly cook raw meat as they normally would. Meat processors Smithfield, Tyson Foods Inc., JBS USA Holdings Inc. and Cargill Inc. have offered bonus pay to workers, while trying to find ways to space out workers. Those processors and others have had to close some plants temporarily, in some cases after health officials warned that processing lines’ tight quarters could speed the coronavirus’s spread. Meat-industry officials fear the problems could deepen, further reducing meat supplies and leaving farmers with nowhere to send livestock and poultry...Overall, U.S. meat supplies remain high, industry officials say, especially because restaurants have closed dining rooms across the country. Cold-storage facilities held 925 million pounds of frozen chicken on Feb. 29, a record for the month, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Stores of red meat in cold storage were up 5% from February 2019 and 3% from January...The shutdowns and slowdowns at other plants are affecting U.S. meat production, analysts said. The number of cattle slaughtered in the week ended April 11 declined 14% from the previous week’s total, according to the USDA, while the number of hogs slaughtered fell 6%. The number of chickens processed declined by 2%...MORE (subscription)