By Tom Polansek
CHICAGO, July 13 (Reuters) – Smithfield Meals, the world’s largest pork processor, has stopped slaughtering pigs in america’ so-called ham capital, the place the corporate was based 85 years in the past.
The top of slaughtering in Smithfield, Virginia, is the most recent reconfiguration for the corporate’s namesake plant and follows a months-long inner assessment of its East Coast operations, Smithfield Meals stated in an announcement.
The corporate, owned by Hong Kong-listed WH Group 0288.HK, is shifting slaughtering to a few of its 47 different U.S. amenities and spending $5 million to improve the Virginia plant to provide extra packaged bacon, ham and different pork merchandise, stated Keira Lombardo, chief administrative officer.
Smithfield, Virginia, is a vacationer vacation spot primarily based on its historical past as Smithfield Meals’ hometown and boasts a museum that includes the world’s oldest ham.
The corporate retooled the plant in 2019 to ship hog carcasses to China, the world’s high pork shopper, and once more final yr to provide extra pork to U.S. clients in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic.
U.S. meat corporations got here beneath scrutiny in the course of the pandemic as plant employees obtained sick and died, and slaughterhouse shutdowns highlighted supply-chain vulnerabilities.
Smithfield’s facility has the capability to kill about 10,000 hogs a day however has been slaughtering roughly 7,000 to 7,500 hogs every day, stated Steve Meyer, economist for consultancy Companions for Manufacturing Agriculture. He stated there are fewer hogs alongside the jap seaboard after farms closed.
“Taking that plant out most likely does not have a lot of an impression,” Meyer stated. “It leaves us comfortable as a rustic so far as hog provide verses capability this fall.”
One East Coast hog provider, Maxwell Meals, stated final yr it will shut and filed a breach of contract lawsuit in opposition to Smithfield Meals.
Smithfield Meals, which named a brand new chief govt on Friday, will reassign a few of the Virginia plant’s 1,900 workers inside the facility and a small quantity could have positions obtainable at different areas, in response to the corporate.
(Reporting by Tom Polansek; Modifying by Cynthia Osterman and Karishma Singh)
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