Pork industry officials say it could take three to four months before meat packing plants are able to work through a backlog of hogs in the supply chain.
That backlog came about after several Midwestern pork processing facilities closed their doors following Covid-19 outbreaks—most notably Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls in mid-April. That plant was closed for three weeks.
Glenn Muller is the president of South Dakota Pork Producers Council. He says the entire supply chain may still be adjusting by the end of the year.
“It remains to be seen what the normal status will be for schools and those types of things, for those menus. Will we be eating at home, or will we be comfortable eating in restaurants? Will restaurants be opening up to full capacity? I think there will be plenty of pork available. I don’t foresee that we’ll have the major disruption that we had with the initial outbreak of Covid-19.”
Muller says there’s been some cases of South Dakota pig farmers euthanizing hogs, but he says it’s been minimal.
On the national level Tuesday, the industry approached a 460 thousand daily kill, which Muller says is 96 percent capacity.
Muller says the industry worked to find alternative markets for hogs and were able to move some out of the state.
