March 22, 2020
With grocery shelves emptied due to COVID-19, Tyson Foods is offering a bonus incentive to cattle suppliers this week. The food supply giant announced in Friday that, for the coming week, it will add the following bonuses to the base cash price for cattle: $5 per cwt. to live cattle and $7.94 per cwt. to dressed and grid cattle.
Tyson Foods Director of Media Relations Gary Michelson says the move represents the company’s commitment to both customers and suppliers during this time of national crisis. “As an American company supporting the agricultural backbone of this country,” he said in an email on Saturday morning, “it is imperative during this national state of emergency, we not only support our customers, but our cattle supply partners as well by ensuring the long-term sustainability of the beef business.”
Michelson continued, “Without the pipeline of high-quality cattle, we would not be able to deliver on meeting the needs of our customers and consumers. It is for these reasons Tyson Fresh Meats is providing a one-time premium effective for cattle harvested the week of March 23rd, in an effort to demonstrate our commitment and support of our valued cattle suppliers. This is an unprecedented time and the intent of our response is to show our support in an effort to help our supply partners weather this extraordinary situation.”
Tyson Foods operates 6 beef packing facilities in the U.S., processing 155,000 head of cattle each week, on average.