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During the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, outbreaks of the virus took place in factories operated by the meat packing industry and the poultry processing industry. These outbreaks affected multiple plants, leading to closures of some factories and disruption of others, and posing a threat to the food supply in Canada.
The Cargill beef processing plant in High River, Alberta is the largest workplace outbreak in Canada, and having over 1000 cases linked to the site, it is considered the single largest infection cause in North America.
Sometime in late March 2020 several industry groups, among them the Canadian Meat Council which included as regular members Cargill, JBS Foods International and the Alberta Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, distributed a flyer entitled "Safeguarding the Canadian Meat Supply". The flyer, which stressed the industry's adherence to CFIA regulations, detailed measures which would be taken to do just that: [1] [2] [3]
It was produced in eight languages. It was distributed, along with a cover letter signed by seven association leaders, to meat professionals in Canada, Mexico, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea, and Japan. [1]
Sometime in early April, a two-page fact sheet entitled "Food Safety and COVID-19" detailed the measures consumers should take to protect themselves and their families. It was keyed in red and made liberal use of federal government advice, and directed readers to government help lines. The industry organizations also produced a pair of videos. [1]
Seventy percent of Canada's beef processing facilities are concentrated in two meat processing facilities in Alberta, both of which closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic on April 20. [4] Coupled with the drop in oil prices, Alberta's financial situation was significantly affected. Experts noted as early as 8 April that the Alberta economy needs to diversify, and perhaps the government needs introduce a Provincial Sales Tax. [4] [5]
As of April 23, the province of Alberta had launched an occupational health and safety investigation into conditions at the Cargill meat-packing plant in High River. 96 employees at a JBS plant in Brooks had tested positive for COVID-19. [6] [7] [8]
Hog producers were unhappy due to closed slaughterhouses and closed restaurants, and lost money on every animal they sold. Human cases of COVID-19 disease in April "at American pork-processing plants, including in South Dakota and Iowa, have temporarily closed facilities and slashed the number of hogs being processed every day by an estimated 60,000." Manitoba hog producers were particularly unhappy because they used to market to the Americans. A finishing pig that commanded $180 in January 2020 is now worth around $130. The producers want reinstated the federal government subsidy called the "set-aside program, which compensates producers for feeding the animals they hold back (from the slaughterhouses) a maintenance diet. The program was first implemented during the BSE crisis" of 25 years before. [9]
On April 28, McDonald's Canada announced that it would begin using beef from approved sources outside of Canada, [4] to supplement their Canadian supply. [10] [11] The National Post reported that product would come from the Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, United States, and Uruguay. [12] It removed Angus beef burgers from its menu, temporarily. [10]
One supermarket in Alberta noted that they were getting less supply of beef, but not a significant impact as of late April. [4]
Some pigs in eastern Canada were euthanised, as slaughterhouses closed. [13]
UFCW Local 401, which represents various beef production plants in Alberta, called for a stop work order in early May. [14]
On 11 May, the CFIA's Agriculture Union of embedded inspectors at slaughterhouses said that management is "threatening disciplinary action against employees who refuse to be reassigned to work at COVID-19-infected meat plants", while Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland said that "those who feel unsafe won't be forced back to work." [15]
On 11 May, a CBC journalist wrote that "The Cargill plant in Alberta, where there have been about 1,000 reported cases [of human COVID-19], is now considered the largest single-site outbreak in North America." [15]
On 13 May, it was reported that forty government food inspectors had contracted COVID-19, 21 of them in Alberta. [16]
The town of High River had 164 cases and one death as of April 17, with some of the patients being employees of the Cargill meat packing plant. The plant continued at a reduced capacity, but no layoffs had occurred as of April 17. [17] As of April 17, there were 358 cases linked to the plant, accounting for 15% of the province's cases; [18] that ratio grew to 1 in 4 by late April. [19] United Food and Commercial Workers Canada Union Local 401 lobbied unsuccessfully for the plant's closure since the point at which health authorities were aware of 38 cases linked to the facility. [18] On April 20, Cargill temporarily closed the facility after a total of 484 cases were confirmed. [20]
Fifteen residents of Eden Valley 216 and Morley were found to have COVID-19 in late April; both are Stoney Nakoda Nation communities. Contract tracing connected some of those cases to Cargill, where some members of that community work. [19] [21]
On 11 May, the Government of Alberta disclosed that a second worker from the Cargill plant had died that day. [22]
As of mid-May, 18 on-site food inspectors at the plant had contracted COVID-19. [16]
At Chambly, Quebec's Cargill plant, 64 employees were contracted the disease. [23] The plant will close by May 13 as a preventative measure, once all food is processed. [24]
Conestoga Meats, in Canada, suffered 2 covid outbreaks with a confirmed 88 positive covid cases. [25] According to the executive director of Workers Action Centre, the conditions of employment and the poor quality of the jobs at Conestoga Meats "led to a high rate of infection". [26] 33 out of the 88 positive cases were recorded to be community acquired. No deaths were declared.
In Brooks, Alberta, 7% of the population tested positive for COVID-19, with 600 workers confirmed and probable cases in the JBS Foods plant. As of May 9, 510 workers had recovered, but one worker died. [27] The plant added a shift premium of $4 an hour, but many employees skipped their shifts, forcing the company to reduce their schedule to one shift. [28] As of April 21, the company claimed that there had been no walk-offs. [29]
On May 1, it was announced that 52 employees of a Lilydale poultry plant in Coquitlam were infected by the virus. [30]
As of April 23, at least one employee of the Lilydale plant in southeast Calgary had COVID-19. [31]
According to a message posted on the companies website, at least 59 employees contracted COVID-19. The company reported one COVID related death. [32] Since the pandemic began, Maple Leaf Foods deployed a plan to tackle COVID-19, the company said: "We deployed our pandemic plan early, conducting daily health and temperature screening, requiring masks and social distancing, installing plexiglass separators between workstations where possible, and adding trailers at some locations to decrease density in employee welfare areas." [33] The company encouraged all employees to get the COVID-19 vaccination. [34]
The Olymel facility in Red Deer faced an extensive COVID-19 outbreak. 515 positive COVID cases were recorded and at least 3 deaths were announced. [35]
28 employees tested positive for the virus at the United Poultry Company, after the health authority investigated. [36] It is not clear whether the virus was spread through contact during work, or within a break room. There was evidence at the plant that employees did have access to gloves and some plastic face coverings, but they identified that the plans that were in place were inadequate or were not appropriately executed. [37]
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is a regulatory agency that is dedicated to the safeguarding of food, plants, and animals (FPA) in Canada, thus enhancing the health and well-being of Canada's people, environment and economy. The agency is responsible to the Minister of Health.
Pilgrim's Pride Corporation is an American, multi-national food company, currently one of the largest chicken producers in the United States and Puerto Rico and the second-largest chicken producer in Mexico. It exited bankruptcy in December 2009 and relocated its U.S. headquarters to Greeley, Colorado, in 2011. It is majority-owned by JBS S.A. Pilgrim's Pride purchased Gold'n Plump for $350 million in late November 2016.
Cargill, Incorporated, is an American global food corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded in 1865, it is the largest privately held company in the United States in terms of revenue.
Tyson Foods, Inc. is an American multinational corporation based in Springdale, Arkansas that operates in the food industry. The company is the world's second-largest processor and marketer of chicken, beef, and pork after JBS S.A. It annually exports the largest percentage of beef out of the United States. Together with its subsidiaries, it operates major food brands, including Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, Ball Park, Wright Brand, Aidells, and State Fair. Tyson Foods ranked No. 79 in the 2020 Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.
The meat-packing industry handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of meat from animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock. Poultry is generally not included. This greater part of the entire meat industry is primarily focused on producing meat for human consumption, but it also yields a variety of by-products including hides, dried blood, protein meals such as meat & bone meal, and, through the process of rendering, fats.
The meat industry are the people and companies engaged in modern industrialized livestock agriculture for the production, packing, preservation and marketing of meat. In economics, the meat industry is a fusion of primary (agriculture) and secondary (industry) activity and hard to characterize strictly in terms of either one alone. The greater part of the meat industry is the meat packing industry – the segment that handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of animals such as poultry, cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock.
Maple Leaf Foods Inc. is a Canadian multinational consumer-packaged meats and food production company. Its head office is in Mississauga, Ontario.
JBS USA Holdings, Inc. is a meat processing company and a wholly owned subsidiary of the Brazilian multinational JBS S.A. The subsidiary was created when JBS entered the U.S. market in 2007 with its purchase of Swift & Company.
Foster Farms is an American poultry company. The company has been privately owned since 1939. It was operated by the Foster family since 1939 until recently, now operated and owned by Atlas Holdings, after their purchase of the company in 2022. The company is based in Livingston, California. Operations are concentrated on the West Coast, but the company also maintains a small number of locations on the East Coast. The company specializes in a variety of chicken and turkey products advertised as fresh and naturally locally grown.
Cargill Meat Solutions is a subsidiary of the Minneapolis-based multinational agribusiness giant Cargill Inc, that comprises Cargill's North American beef, turkey, food service and food distribution businesses. Cargill Meat Solutions' corporate office is located in Wichita, Kansas, United States. Jody Horner is the division's president.
JBS S.A. is a Brazilian company that is the largest meat processing enterprise in the world, producing factory processed beef, chicken and pork, and also selling by-products from the processing of these meats. It is headquartered in São Paulo. It was founded in 1953 in Anápolis, Goiás.
XL Foods Inc. is a Canadian meat packing company. The company is a subsidiary of Nilsson Brothers Inc. based in Edmonton, Alberta. From 2009 until 2013, XL Foods' Lakeside Packers Division was located just west of Brooks, Alberta, in Newell County. This facility was the second largest beef-processing operation in Canada. During this period the company was by far the largest employer in Brooks, employing more than 2,200 people in 2012.
National Beef is a beef processor headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, that produces fresh, chilled and further processed beef and beef by-products for customers worldwide. The company is owned by Brazilian multinational Marfrig. Its main focuses include branded box beef, consumer ready beef, portion control beef and wet blue leather. The company is considered one of the modern "big four" beef packers in the United States.
Devin Dreeshen is a Canadian politician and a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, representing the electoral district of Innisfail-Sylvan Lake. He was first elected with 82 per cent of the vote in a by-election in July 2018, and was re-elected in the 2019 Alberta general election to the 30th Alberta Legislature. In the 2023 Alberta general election, Dreeshen was once again re-elected to the 31st Alberta Legislature.
The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached the U.S. state of Iowa in March 2020. The first known cases were three individuals who had traveled on a cruise in Egypt before returning home to Johnson County on March 3. Initially, case clusters were focused at meatpacking plants and congregate care facilities. By late October, community spread had become a concern, and some areas of the state had reported over 20% test positivity. A headline stated that "Iowa hospitals fear overwhelming patient surge if coronavirus cases continue to climb."
The COVID-19 pandemic in Alberta is part of an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The province of Alberta has the third-most cases of COVID-19 in Canada, behind only Ontario and Quebec.
The meat industry has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. Outbreaks of the virus have taken place in factories operated by the meat packing industry and the poultry processing industry. These outbreaks affected dozens of plants, leading to closures of some factories and disruption of others, and posed a significant threat to the meat supply in the United States. By April 27, 2020, there were at least 115 facilities with cases across 23 states, and at least 4,913 workers diagnosed positive with COVID-19, or approximately 3 percent of the workforce, with 20 deaths reported.
The COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing viral pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a novel infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The pandemic has affected the Cities of Mississauga and Brampton, and the Town of Caledon, within the Regional Municipality of Peel. As part of the larger closure decisions in Ontario, a stay-at-home order shuttered all nonessential businesses, and caused event cancellations.
On May 30, 2021, JBS S.A., a Brazil-based meat processing company, suffered a cyberattack, disabling its beef and pork slaughterhouses. The attack impacted facilities in the United States, Canada, and Australia.
The following is a timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in Alberta.