August 8, 2020

 

Smithfield Foods defends response to virus in NYT ad

 

US food giant Smithfield Foods Inc. has defended its efforts to keep employees safe and supply food to the nation, after being criticized that workers at its meat plants haven't been adequately safeguarded against the novel coronavirus.

 

The company, which is also the world's top pork producer, placed a full-page ad in the New York Times last Sunday, Aug. 2, which accused its critics of false narratives and misinformation and defended its operations to keep the nation fed during the pandemic, Bloomberg reported.

 

The ad also alleged that Smithfield and its industry were being used as "political pawns," even as the company has stayed apolitical to make hard decisions and confront challenges that are "rooted in responsibility and delivered with integrity", the Bloomberg report said.

 

The ad partly read: "We must produce food, and someone has to do it. Certainly it is not the critics who have answered the bell. No, it is our nation's food and agriculture workers who have done so".

 

The report said Smithfield has declined to share recent data on coronavirus infections among employees at its plants.

 

Smithfield's social distancing response

 

Last July, Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Cory Booker of New Jersey released responses of major producers as part of an investigation into the spread of coronavirus at US meat plants.

 

In its response, Smithfield defended its not being able to establish social distancing throughout its facilities.

 

"For better or worse, our plants are what they are," the company's chief executive officer, Ken Sullivan, was quoted as saying. "Four walls, engineered design, efficient use of space, etc. Spread out? Okay. Where? To say it is a challenge is an understatement."

 

Warren, meanwhile, claimed that the ad was an attempt by Smithfield to distract from its refusal to provide crucial information on workplace safety.

 

In early April Smithfield Foods decided to keep its facility in Sioux Falls city in South Dakota, as well as in other states, closed indefinitely, apparently after several of its employees tested positive for COVID-19.