April 13, 2020 

Smithfield Foods to close Sioux Falls, South Dakota plant indefinitely amid pandemic

Smithfield Foods Inc. announced Sunday, April 12, that its facility in Sioux Falls city in South Dakota, USA, will remain closed until further notice.

The plant is one of the largest pork processing facilities in the US, representing 4% to 5% of US pork production. It supplies nearly 130 million servings of food per week, or about 18 million servings per day, and employs 3,700 people. More than 550 independent family farmers supply the plant.

"The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply", said Kenneth M. Sullivan, Smithfield president and chief executive officer.

In preparation for a full shutdown, some activity will occur at the plant on Tuesday to process product in inventory, consisting of millions of servings of protein. Smithfield said it will resume operations in Sioux Falls once the go signal is received from local, state and federal officials. The company said it will continue to compensate its employees for the next two weeks and hopes to keep them from joining the ranks of the tens of millions of unemployed Americans across the country.

Sullivan admitted that facility closures will have "severe, perhaps disastrous, repercussions for many in the supply chain, first and foremost our nation's livestock farmers…[who] have nowhere to send their animals".

Despite the backlash on the agriculture and food sectors, including numerous plants across the country having COVID-19 positive employees, Sullivan said they have continued to run the company's facilities to sustain the nation's food supply during this pandemic. "We believe it is our obligation to help feed the country, now more than ever. We have a stark choice as a nation: we are either going to produce food or not, even in the face of COVID-19", he stressed.

According to the US Food & Drug Administration, there is no evidence of food or food packaging being associated with the transmission of COVID-19. 

Smithfield Foods is headquartered in Smithfield, Virginia, with 40,000 US employees.