Meat processing plants have changed over time

As a follow-up discussion to the previously reported-on University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Center for Agricultural Profitability (CAP) webinar, another industry professional has provided his insight on why and how meat processing plants have changed over time due to the COVID-19 era. 
“Over the next hour or so we will cover how the market and political climate has led to the allocation of grant dollars for meat processing plants and what are the available grant opportunities for producers,” began Elliott Dennis, Assistant Professor and Extension Livestock Economist, UNL Agricultural Economics. “First I wanted to kind of set the stage on how we got to this point where we were allocating, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars to the development of small and medium sized processing plants.”
The first, and probably most prominent factor is the impact of COVID-19 in the months of February through April, he said. 
“What we saw is that the number of cases per capita was growing larger in counties where there were meat processing plants,” he continued, referencing his on-screen data. “What we really saw is that there was a larger share of cases per capita increasing in counties where there were more large meat processing plants. (Also) what we saw is that actually, there was kind of this disproportion between what we considered the ‘big four’, or the top four meat processing plants, and other meat processing plants.” 

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