Cooper Farms is donating $500 to The Ohio Association of Foodbanks as a part of team member and social media outreach. The company is also donating another 25,200 dozen eggs to foodbanks in Lima and Toledo, to provide much needed protein. This donation comes just weeks after a donation of nearly 6,000 pounds of turkey and two truckloads of eggs to the association.

The makers of Hormel Natural Choice premium lunch meat have launched a new line of slow-smoked products called Natural Choice hardwood smoked lunch meats. These crafted products--smoked in netting over real wood chips for over four hours--include flavors like Applewood Ham, Applewood Turkey with Garlic and Herbs, Pecanwood Ham with Sweet Black Pepper, and Pecanwood Ham with Brown Sugar.

Smithfield Culinary, the foodservice unit of Smithfield Foods, the nation’s leading pork processor, has donated $25,000 to the Ferdinand Metz American Culinary Federation (ACF) Relief Fund to provide financial assistance to chefs, culinarians, and foodservice workers across America who are experiencing hardship in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Smithfield Foods will resume pork processing operations in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, after being shut down since April 12. Smithfield receiving positive confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) that the company is in full compliance with all CDC and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) guidance. 

Tyson Fresh Meats, the beef and pork subsidiary of Tyson Foods, announced it will resume limited production at its Waterloo, Iowa, facility on Thursday, May 7. Team members have been invited to tour the facility Wednesday to view the enhanced safety precautions and protective social distancing measures installed throughout the plant.

Smithfield Foods will suspend operations at its Monmouth, Illinois, facility beginning next week and until further notice after a small portion of its 1,700 employees tested positive for COVID-19. The Monmouth plant represents approximately 3% of U.S. fresh pork supplies and also produces bacon. Employees will be paid during the closure.

Tyson Fresh Meats, the beef and pork subsidiary of Tyson Foods, plans to indefinitely suspend operations at its Waterloo, Iowa, pork plant this week. The facility, the company’s largest pork plant, has been running at reduced levels of production due to worker absenteeism, and will stop production mid-week until further notice. The facility’s 2,800 team members will be invited to come to the plant later this week for COVID-19 testing.

Tyson Fresh Meats, the beef and pork subsidiary of Tyson Foods, will resume limited operations at its pork plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa, after being idle for two weeks due to COVID-19 concerns.

Smithfield Foods will close its Cudahy, Wisconsin, and Martin City, Missouri, facilities later this week. Its Cudahy dry sausage and bacon plant will shutter for two weeks. Its Martin City plant, which employs over 400 people and produces spiral and smoked hams, receives raw material from the company’s Sioux Falls, South Dakota facility, which is closed indefinitely. Without these raw materials, the facility cannot continue to run. Smithfield will resume operations in Sioux Falls once it receives further direction from local, state and federal officials. This will also allow the company to bring its Martin City facility back online.

Smithfield Foods announced that its Sioux Falls, South Dakota, facility will remain closed until further notice. The plant is one of the largest pork processing facilities in the U.S., representing four to five percent of U.S. 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.