Coronavirus shuts down meat packing plants across the US. What about SC?
The Palmetto Pigeon Plant in Sumter has been processing specialty poultry — first squab and now Cornish hens and silky chickens — since 1923.
The plant has carved out a huge niche market nationally, selling to Asian and white tablecloth restaurants in the nation’s biggest cities — New York., Chicago, LA and nearly all the others. It also stocks the specialty birds to high end retailers like Whole Foods.
Since owner Tony Barwick first got wind of the coronavirus in early March, he has required that all of his 40 employees have their temperatures taken before their shifts and that they wear masks. And the plant’s already exhaustive sanitation procedures — poultry is highly susceptible to the transfer of bacteria — have been enhanced.
So far, none of the employees have shown symptoms.
“We haven’t had an issue,” he said. “Knock on wood.”
That hasn’t been the case for meat processing plants in other parts of the country.
The Covid-19 pandemic has shuttered meatpacking facilities across the nation in recent weeks, with at least 4,400 workers falling ill across 80 plants, causing 28 to close for at least one day, according to national media outlets and research groups.
It’s feared the shutdowns — so far affecting beef, pork and sheep butchering — will cause shortages in these commodities in coming weeks, although a visit to two area BiLo grocery stores this week showed supplies to be steady.
South Carolina has no major beef, pork or sheep production plants.
It does have six major poultry processing plants that dwarf Palmetto Pigeon Plant’s production, some processing up to 200,000 birds a day, Barwick said.
A map by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows the plants are the Kraft-Heinz Foods turkey processing plant in Newberry, and chicken processing plants House of Raeford Farms in West Columbia and Greenville, Pilgrim’s Pride in Sumter, Amick Farms in Batesburg and Perdue Farms in Dillon.
At least one of those plants has had positive coronavirus cases among their employees.
No employees at the West Columbia House of Raeford facility have tested positive for the coronavirus, Dave Witter, a spokesman for the North Carolina-based company, said, but there have been “a very small number” at the Greenville plant.
“However, out of privacy concerns we will not be disclosing further details,” he said. “Local and/or state health officials provided guidance on how to inform potentially exposed employees and the proper healthcare procedures they should take.”
Witter said both the West Columbia and Greenville plants continue to operate with no layoffs or furloughs, although the plants have reduced production “to some degree” because orders from restaurants have decreased as a result of restaurant closures across the nation.
“We have tried to keep our normal process going for the benefit of the farmers that raise our chickens and our employees who do the processing,” he said.
The West Columbia processing plant has 675 employees and Greenville has more than 700, he said. The company processes an average of 150,000 chickens a day in West Columbia and 135,000 daily in Greenville.
Diana Souder, Perdue’s director of communications, told The State the company has had “some” confirmed cases of coronavirus company-wide, but didn’t identify which plants “out of respect for our associates’ privacy under applicable confidentiality guidelines.”
Perdue has 1,122 workers at the Dillon plant who process 325,000 chickens per day, Souder said.
Michael Mulling, spokesman for Kraft, said the Newberry turkey plant has had no positive COVID cases.
The plant has 1,900 employees and “the facility is open and fully operational,” he said.
Amick Farms has 2,000 employees at its facilities statewide and produces 12 million pounds of poultry per week, communications manager Brittni Miller said.
As for any coronavirus cases among it its employees, she said: “We do not share team members’ health situations.”
All of the South Carolina meat processing plants are following guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, their spokespeople said.
The measures include increased cleaning and sanitation, restricting travel and non-essential visitors, social distancing where possible, temperature checking and face masks.
The State has reached out to Pilgrim’s Pride.
Souder, the Perdue spokesperson, said the pandemic has not affected staffing.
“We are always looking for qualified employees at our facilities across the country and are currently hiring,” she said.
Raeford is also advertising for additional employees.
“We are already seeing some of the business from our food service customers (which serve restaurants) returning,” he said. “We expect that to continue over the next few weeks.”
Amick and Kraft are also hiring.
On Friday, S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster announced that the state’s restaurants could reopen for outside dining, beginning Monday.
For Barwick, at Palmetto Pigeon, reopening restaurants nationally in any capacity would be a blessing. His business is off 40 percent since the coronavirus outbreak.
The company raises its poultry on three farms it operates in Sumter and Clarendon counties. “So we have to keep processing because the birds keep coming,” he said.
The company has already exhausted cold storage space in the Midlands, and is now shipping poultry to New Jersey for storage, Barwick said.
“We’ve put a lot of stuff in the freezer,” he said. “You realize this will pass and you’ll sell the product later on.”
He added that while his food service sales have fallen dramatically, the retail grocery store business remains strong. He is optimistic that things will improve.
“The American spirit is coming through,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”
This story was originally published May 4, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Coronavirus shuts down meat packing plants across the US. What about SC?."