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Rather than being centered in one specific segment of the chain, the disruptions resemble the rippling collisions between train cars when the force of initiating motion works its way down the cars and snaps up all the slack.
The latest dimension of these catastrophes are the large numbers of workers falling ill in key slaughter and processing plants across all species, forcing many to temporarily close and their product, including live animals, backing up on farms while prices for live animal’s plunge. The very nature of fabricating cooled carcasses as well as the initial slaughter phase workflow, is that many plant personnel are staged side-by-side doing small repetitive tasks as the lines move.
This has been the norm for many decades and reflects a solution to the large turnover in employment that such plants often suffer, while less so in some parts of the EU, especially with small scale plants, it is very typical in the United States. By keeping any one person’s tasks relatively simple, the plant can replace an employee who leaves or calls in sick, quickly and with a minimal amount of skill training. While this is an elegant solution to the problem of employee turnover, it blocks the ability of plant workers to maintain the spacing recommended for minimizing the contagion. Therefore, reopening plants that have experienced lots of illness, (350+ workers COVID-19 positive in one large slaughter plant in the US) means erecting plexiglass barriers and spacing line workers in a fashion that creates a substantial slowdown in plant throughput. Don’t forget the sometimes helpful sometimes hindering interventions of local and regional policy makers.
Add to this the fact that the vast majority of hotel, restaurant and institutional demand has stopped nearly dead in its tracks. An estimated 25% of processed pork is having to find a new home either in already cramped storage, reconfigured for retail or a small amount going in direct sales to final household users. This is a difficult pivot because much of the packaging for retail is in quantities, shapes and configurations difficult to manage and in forms supporting large cooking appliances not present in a typical home.
For instance, even one of the large bags of cracked eggs which produce that uniformly light yellow, scrambled eggs you are familiar with at conference hotel breakfast buffets would overwhelm a household kitchen. How about a 25kg cardboard box of sliced bacon? Giant bags of French fries and finger foods for the deep fryer can sometimes be managed at home if there is freezer space but many of the items are packaged for a particular purpose and have no established market or path to consumers.
Cleverness however is rising throughout the chain to move some of this to consumers by selling ready to cook meals, where authorized by local policy makers, packaged from restaurants forbidden to admit guests. One national steakhouse is selling uncooked steaks on a drive-up basis to buy, take home and grill yourself. McDonald’s the largest user of breakfast pork has reversed its decision of a few years ago and stopped doing all day breakfast. This is meant to simplify procedures in cooking and food assembly lines within the restaurant that have been slowed for proper employee spacing and the extra sanitation now required etc. However, they and many other fast food outlets and grocery stores have phone APPs whereby you can order and arrange delivery at one of multiple locations such as your home, a particular place in the parking lot of the restaurant or at the normal food pickup window.
I have only scratched the surface of the blocked supply chains, the plant closures, the public policy restrictions in many places emptying universities, restaurants, farmer’s markets etc. This has moved almost all food demand to the retail sector which is overwhelmed. Many grocers have established one-way aisles and passage through the food shelves and limited total people and spacing within the stores adding a large amount of friction to the normally smooth performing food chain. We know where all this disruption finally lands…in the lap of global beef, pork and poultry producers.
Here, we have to say, there is no time for panic, fear or depression. Cleverness, innovation and ingenuity are the only source of help in these times and they are powerful. If there is some small grace in all of this, the number of pigs coming to markets has already been slowing some heading into the seasonal slowdown of summer. Sows are being liquidated, from what we know, a sizeable percent increase and more are already gone but ahead of the pace of public reporting. This of course will further depress prices temporarily. Weaned pig prices in the US have essentially dropped to zero.
There is much good advice coming to the fore about how to slow the growth of pigs in finishing significantly (but not substantially) without creating an animal welfare problem. Feed costs are extremely low by historical standards and slaughter plants still operating are attempting to take pigs from those which have been forced to close. However, ramping up to a double shift is not likely in any single shift plant because the risk of introducing a large number of new employees who are asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19 and the risk of having fresh meat with nowhere to go is too great. The logjam must be worked through with all the ingenuity, innovation and cleverness which can be summoned by all chain participants but especially at the farm. I never bet against these three forces.
The financial devastation and heartbreak will be great but so will be the victory here, the solution there, the cooperation with neighbors and vendors which was unexpected and life affirming. Government help will be substantial, and lenders will find some bending room where any hope remains. The small and often unexpected acts will create the truly lasting memories of this time.
