Coronavirus slows hen manufacturing in top-producing U.S. state -Sanderson Farms

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Coronavirus slows hen manufacturing in top-producing U.S. state -Sanderson Farms

By Tom Polansek


By Tom Polansek

CHICAGO, April 2 (Reuters)U.S. poultry firm Sanderson Farms Inc SAFM.O on Thursday stated it’s decreasing hen manufacturing in Georgia, the highest U.S. chicken-producing state, after ordering greater than 400 slaughterhouse staff who appear wholesome to remain residence as a precaution towards an infection by the novel coronavirus.

The transfer may eat into margins on the firm and is an early signal of pressure within the U.S. meals provide chain at a time of surging client demand at grocery shops.

Sanderson Farms is slicing hen processing to 1 million birds every week from 1.Three million over the following 4 weeks in Moultrie, Georgia, after telling 415 staff to remain residence with pay, Chief Government Joe Sanderson stated on a convention name.

The employees dwell in Dougherty County, a “hotbed” of coronavirus circumstances, though there aren’t any indications they aren’t wholesome, he stated.

“My guess is we will hold paying these folks to keep away from the plant in Moultrie,” the CEO stated, noting the corporate is hiring different staff for the power.

U.S. meat and poultry processors have been shaken by the coronavirus pandemic as staff have fallen ailing and customers shifted demand to grocery shops from eating places, bars and cafeterias which might be shut.

The US is the world’s largest producer and second largest exporter of poultry meat. The nation produced 9 billion chickens for meat in 2018, and 15% got here from Georgia, in response to the Nationwide Rooster Council, an business group.

Dougherty County, Georgia, has greater than 500 recognized circumstances of the sickness attributable to the coronavirus and essentially the most deaths of any county within the state, in response to well being officers. There have been 29 coronavirus-related deaths within the county, in response to a Reuters tally.

Sanderson, which might course of greater than 13.6 million chickens per week in any respect its slaughterhouses, stated a complete of 204 staff had been quarantined with pay as a result of they’ve proven signs of the virus. Fifteen staff have examined optimistic nationwide. Earlier circumstances haven’t shut crops.

To satisfy elevated grocery-store demand, Sanderson is shifting manufacturing towards hen offered in “tray packs” in supermarkets, quite than larger birds equipped to eating places and food-service retailers.

The corporate minimize its estimate for “massive chook” manufacturing in its fiscal third quarter by 3.1% from a February estimate and raised its “tray pack” estimate by 3.1%.

Sanderson final week started decreasing the variety of eggs put into incubators for the aim of hatching into chickens destined for eating places and food-service firms. Demand for giant chook enterprise is down 60% to 65%, in response to the corporate.

(Reporting by Tom Polansek Modifying by Invoice Berkrot)

(([email protected]; +1-312-408-8556; Twitter: @tpolansek; Reuters Messaging: [email protected]))

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