The CEO of one of the nation's largest meat processors says that the US is perilously close to a severe meat shortage because of coronavirus forcing the closing of various processing facilities. Are we glad that we hunt or what? I've got deer, antelope, turkey, and elk in the freezer.....and pretty glad that I do.....
In my town Greeley CO. JBS is a large beef processor and employees between 4000-5000 they have had a lot of Covid and couple of deaths. There is talk of it possibly closing for a period of time.
Yes, but my problem is, the time of year is coming where my freezer starts to get empty. I'm usually running out of various meats, whether that be burger, sausage, or roasts around June-July.
Fortunately, a friend shot a few caribou last week so I'm stocked back up here in AK, but I typically don't have enough meat to supply the family through hunting seasons down where they live in CA and they've got enough meat to make it till about Sept-Oct. And currently I can't leave AK.
At least my dad and brother live close and they won't let anyone run out of meat if it really gets to the point where there's no meat in the grocery stores.
I just read another article yesterday about farmers plowing veggies under because they have no restaurant buyers.
Food supplies have to keep moving in this country. Nonetheless, it is fantastic to have the available option to "shop" for wild game if they dont.
Why plow them under? If they can't sell them, why waste fuel until this thing turns around? Besides, lots of restaurants are now converting themselves to grocery stores.
If they are closing meat processing plants, there should be plenty of beef and pork to be bought privately. Go in with someone and buy a hog or beef, split the processing costs. You'll likely get a better price and better meat.
Glad I have a freezer full of elk, antelope, and deer.
Wild game sure is tasty, but lacks in fat content. And that is what will be in shortage when meat processors close, because even tho its not healthy, your body needs fat content - in moderation.
One of my biggest concerns is for the cattle and hog producers and their fat cattle and hogs that are ready to go to market now, plus in the near future. They can feed them for a certain length of time longer, but for how long, plus there are other feeder cattle/hogs getting closer to market weight each day behind them.
Some of my meat is still running around out behind the house. Just had a Tom Turkey show up yesterday. Having meat in the freezer is not a priority at all.
I’ve got an elk, half an antelope, and some odds and ends. Not sure what Joe Public is going to do? They don’t have the ability to butcher an animal themselves even if they found a beef to split.
This shutdown of our economy has to end NOW. The numbers we're being fed about COVID are inaccurate and in some cases downright deceitful. If this continues and we start seeing shortages of food and other REAL "essentials", then what will occur will make the COVID deaths pale in comparison.
Do we really want this to get to the, "better lock and load" level? Because THAT'S where it will be heading.
Woods Walker is correct! The numbers can be manipulated which ever way the media wants them to go. The numbers do NOT keep accumulating as the media shows us every day. The vast majority of the people who tested positive in the first couple weeks of the "pandemic" have survived it,and are now back to living their normal lives.
Another issue that these processing plants and vegetable farmers are having is getting the help they need from Mexico. With the border being closed the owners of these plants and veggie operations cant get their Visa workers back across the border.
Americans wont do this work because there is too much labor involved. Heavens forbid if someone had to break a sweat to earn a paycheck in todays world.
This is also effecting the dairy industry has well. With schools closing early and the restaurant industry coming to a standstill millions of gallons of milk are being dumped daily as the processing plants have no room for it.
+1 Nick, buying locally also supports small business in your community. One of those large processing centers being shut down is only a couple miles from my home, one of the largest pork producers in the country. They have nearly 400 confirmed cases of Covid in their plant. That plant's cases make up nearly HALF of all cases in our state. That processor was only a week ago paying bonuses to employees who kept working while sick, thus spreading it everywhere in the plant and our community. It's also the same plant that is fined annually for dumping pollutants into the Big Sioux River. They get a pass because they are one of our largest employers. I will say this, it will be a cold day in hell before I ever buy a product made at that plant.
Nick I feel that this whole ordeal may open up a window for local meat sales through ranchers. Packers have been bending the ranchers over for decades and I hope this opens up some new avenues for the rancher.
Cheena needs out of our food chain unless we selling them a ten times value until our Trillions in lost GDP are erased.
We live hogs and beefers start disappearing from the herd you'll know the Safeway and Food Lion, Fred Meyer is zero balance on meats. Arby's to the rescue?
With all these schools out you's think meat would be readily available like milk products?
Wonder if they dumped the entire production lines at Smithfield? Prolly just shipped it out and called it good. I do need some hogs soon. Need to grins burger.
HH....they're working through the hogs they had on hand, and everything that was on the line, still working right now as I type. They have stopped accepting delivering of any new incoming live hogs. Not sure where that has left the producers in the supply line as of now other than with fat hogs on hand, there's your chance for bacon.
Smithfield,one of the largest pork producers in the country,sends a lot of pork to China to be processed. It is cheaper to get it processed over there than here. But USDA regulations do not require them to inform the consumers of this! The final product says "Raised in USA",but nothing about where it was processed!
How convenient that the last few years meatless meat is becoming all the rage, wonder if someone knew something...yep, they all called me paranoid round the campfire when I pointed out that out of the blue veggie meat was being hyped. Burger king, jones sausage company etc. pushing meatless meat, hmmm....
A couple of my more “urbanized” co-workers asked if I could teach them how to hunt and fish recently. One of them has a licensed hair stylist for a wife. I told him I’d teach him how to hunt in exchange for a “black market” haircut! ;-)
Yeah Most will flop like a fish rather than feed themselves from seed to fruit or arrow to liver n onions!
Maybe the Wuhan will change the Snowflakes perception of feeding themselves or going hungry. Maybe we embrace this chance to build on American hard scrabble self reliance.
Take a new Millennial on a turkey hunt. Clean a bird, dress a gizzard, harvest heart, liver, wing and tail. Then, fix a meal.
HH I hope you are correct about changing the snowflakes perception to a more conservative view, but I am afraid the answer many of them come to will be that more government is the answer.
Pragmatic view. You work at feeding and living another day or curl up in fetal and perish. Some will do both but only one path will lead to survival.
Beefers and hogs go cheap for folk who can pickup and take care of yourself. Looks some of us be getting the crap out old smoke haus. Getting it ready for hogs. Have a big one on farm, only use it once a year for sausage. Might be time to get a load of slabs and dust dropped off?
I just had a beef butchered in February, so we are good on meat. The idea of people getting a beef from the local rancher/feeder sound great. Up until you tell them the price of the beef ($1400/avg at today's market) and then another $700-$800 for processing. I have had several people ask about getting a beef, they rarely call you back after hearing how much money they have to have to get. Even if they split it 4 ways it's a big investment dollar wise just for meat. Most people dont have that much money just sitting around for that. Especially now that a lot are off of work. Its easier for them to buy it a little at a time from the store, it spreads out the cost evenly thru the year. And around our area, you have a couple month wait to get a beef in and get butchered at the local lockers. And yes, it's been a rough go in the cattle business the past couple years. I work a full time job and my wife is a teacher. So we dont need it to live on. We run a small stocker/feeder operation (usually 300hd) it's been in red ink for the past 2 yrs. Yes, the packers have us by the balls. I dont think this will help us any at all. If anything it will make it worse. Just like the fire at the Tyson plant last year. Packer margins went up to $600/hd profit, while ours went to -$300. But I have always figured that's just the business and take the good with the bad and keep on going.
We aren’t shutting down. Of course, we only have 4 employees right now during the “off” season but we’re doing all that we can handle at this time. I could hire more people and have more slaughter days which then turns into longer processing days. Then it turns into more workers being in close proximity to each other. We just have longer waits to get an animal in than normal.
Ks explained it all pretty well. People want the meat but can’t or don’t want to pay the price the rancher needs or the processor needs to just operate.
I have over 8000 rounds of .22 and just as many squirrels so we won't starve. The world sure is going to change though...more-so than Okalahoma City, 9-11, or any other significant event during my lifetime. I'm not scared of dying, I'm scared of surviving and having to live in that world. Land of the Free just went out the window folks and it ain't coming back I'm afraid. We've shown them how easily we can be manipulated so now there'll be no end to the madness of closures, handouts, and picking winners and losers. Sad..
Sioux Falls Smithfield plant butchers like 20,000 hogs per day. No way for local/small scale butchers can keep up with those numbers. In ten days that would be a hog for every person in our county. This has left pig farmers in a bind and trying to find a market for their hogs. Bad deal for everyone they may end up killing and dumping hogs. If people don’t have food the economy will come back virus or not.
i'm in the meat buisness. There is no meat shortage. in fact there is an over abundance of meat in the country today. Poultry prices are at an ALL TIME low right now.
Our country produces more meat than we could ever eat - Exports and Food service business is very slow right now.
The restaurant industry closing has put a lot of meat products back on the market. If your paying more in the Grocery store - they are price gouging.
The South Dakota plant supplies 4% of the Nations pork - that can easily be made up by other facilities. Also they cite Tyson shutting down chicken production. But that is because there is a massive surplus of chicken, (they forget to mention that), Chicken wings are half the price as what they were in Jan/Feb. There are 2 huge months for chicken sales - where they flood the market with surplus chicken. Super Bowl and final four BB. Since college BB has been canceled (and restaurants closed) there are massive quantities of wings in stores - going for half the price of 3 months ago - read article about it last week.
So Tyson’s is shutting down places because of the surplus - not the virus. If people are seeing any type of beef shortage - according to other articles I’ve read, it’s because of folks hoarding (like the TP) because of these “panic” articles. The meat supplies will be replenished in the stores.
I can't imagine a shortage of available beef in the US. There are 1000 mama cows on pasture within a 3 mile circle of my house. While getting them processed may be a chore, we got the Beef, I would imagine.
Hogs are more worrisome, just because there aren't many small farmers with hogs anymore, at least in my area. It's all big corporate confinement operations. Not like the days when my grandpa paid the monthly bills by selling 50 feeder hogs a month
Although if the market came back, I can see local farmers raising again. Some of them still have almost intact facilities.
And some of the producers can correct me, but I believe that the beef market is going to be heavily subsidized for 2020.
All this talk of surplus chickens, beef and pork. Anyone actually paying less at the market for those things? I don't buy meat at the store but I checked last night at my local market based upon these comments during my weekly grocery stop. All of the meat prices were exactly the same as they were last time I looked a couple months ago. Anyone else seeing different at their supermarket?
They aren't saying a possible shortage due to lack of pork or beef. The shortage would be due to lack of processors. Meaning, getting it from the farm to the neat little plastic packages.
Midwest has it right. When a plant closes, wether it be this virus or a fire like happened last summer. The meat prices go up and beef prices go down. We have a surplus on the hoof and a shortage coming off the rails (or at least a made up shortage by the packers to increase profits)
Same in PA- saw it on the news last night. Milk processors not accepting any more milk and the dairy farmer just pouring it down the drain.
Interestingly, he said he can’t legally sell raw milk, but he can give it away. Said he was giving away what he could(very small amount compared to what he produces)
Back in the 1950s we young ones would ask (in the fall) what kind of meat we were eating as no calf had died, no hog had been butchered, and all chickens were intact. My mother would shush us and demand we just eat it. We did as it was tasty. Later in life we found out our grandfather was somewhat friendly with the local warden and; after numerous rounds at their local bar on Friday eve; the warden would tell him where he would be working that weekend. Much later in life I was Supt. of their local school and had that warden's grandchildren in my classes. Better the gov. start paying close attention to our farmers and the food supply chain...to hell with China...they cannot feed themselves much less be selfsufficent with fuel. I still have 1/2 a freezer of moose from my 2017 hunt and put a fat doe there in 2018. The Tyson hog farms nearby are still operating as far as I know...one cannot get near them unless you work there.
I'm very fortunate to live on the coast & have my own offshore fishing boat. So basically we put fish in the freezer or cann so we have fish all winter & we put game in the freezer or cann so we have game in the summer.
The hoots in North Dakota take a 160 hogs a week to South Dakota but now the plant shut down. So they have a surplus going down today and picking up half a hog. 125 bucks hams bacon pork sausage pork chops cut and wrapped. Pork it’s what’s For dinner.
Daily hog slaughter in the US is close to 500,000 head.
That means 500,000 head are farrowed each day to keep the pipeline full.
Something has to give when even a small percentage of that capacity stops, and now it has reached to my neighbors.
We are planning to butcher 5 or 6 300# pigs from our neighbor, purchased for 25 cents/#. Local small butcher shops are booked full into July. We are fortunate to have our own setup to process deer and elk, with an 8' X 8' walk in cooler and a rail system to move the carcasses around.
