Packing plants across the country are starting to pick up speed. The USDA reports that beef and poultry processors are operating at 98 percent capacity while pork facilities are back up to 95 percent.
The industry says that the President’s national security order is helping plants stay open, but operating costs and paying for new safety measures are still concerns.
According to Kenny Burdine, a professor at the University of Kentucky, “Similar to beef, pork production was down about 34 percent from 2019...the most recent data, we’ve been down about 6 percent. So, again, we’ve ratcheted things up, fairly quickly, which has actually been fairly encouraging.”