Cost Of Meat, Other Foods Hit Historic Highs With Prices Expected To Remain Elevated For Months
The 2.6% jump in April food prices was the largest monthly increase in 46 years, according to the Labor Department. Burgers, chicken and even garlic prices are higher with harvesting and transporting goods more difficult during the pandemic. The situation is worse for meat largely because of illnesses among slaughterhouse workers that allowed plants to operate at only 60% capacity. Other news on the meat industry is on plants unable to meet demands and towns worried about plant's dangers to public health, as well.
The Associated Press:
US Food Prices See Historic Jump And Are Likely To Stay High
As if trips to the grocery store weren’t nerve-wracking enough, U.S. shoppers lately have seen the costs of meat, eggs and even potatoes soar as the coronavirus has disrupted processing plants and distribution networks. Overall, the cost of food bought to eat at home skyrocketed by the most in 46 years, and analysts caution that meat prices in particular could remain high as slaughterhouses struggle to maintain production levels while implementing procedures intended to keep workers healthy. (Pitt, 5/30)
The Wall Street Journal:
Meat Plants Reopen, But Burgers Stay Pricey
A national meat-supply crunch driven by the coronavirus pandemic is beginning to ease, though meat and grocery suppliers expect the effects to linger for months. Even as meatpacking plants reopen and some supermarkets reduce limits on meat purchases, consumers are paying more for ground beef and other staples across the country as meat production remains hampered by Covid-19, and grocery distributors struggle to get some orders filled. (Bunge and Kang, 5/31)
St. Louis Post Dispatch:
Pork Packing Saved Milan, Mo. Now Some See Plant As A Threat
The fortunes of this small northern Missouri town squarely are tied to meat. Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the U.S., runs a slaughterhouse and processing plant in the rolling hills here, where more than 10,000 hogs typically are butchered in a single eight-hour shift. The plant is the local economic anchor and has brought new residents — many of them immigrants — to Milan, helping the 2,000-person town last, even as other rural communities fade. (Gray, 5/30)
Reuters:
Special Report: In Oklahoma Pork-Packing Town, COVID Stirs Fear, Faith And Sorrow
Over 25 years, the massive pork plant that dominates this small city brought jobs, new residents and an economic lifeline to a slowly shrinking farming community. Attracted by relatively good wages at Seaboard Foods, immigrants like Felix and Pilar Jimenez arrived by the hundreds to slaughter hogs and process meat for shipment all over the world. The Mexican couple started work in Guymon, on the vast plains of Oklahoma’s panhandle, about a year after the plant opened, followed in time by their sons Michael, now 26, and Anthony, 22. (Hay and Sullivan, 5/23)
