Monday, March 17, 2014

PED cuts pork plant shifts



Smithfield Foods has cut one day per week from its slaughter schedule at the world’s largest plant at Tar Heel, North Carolina, says Reuters news agency.

The reduction from five to four days per week is blamed on the reduction of hog production due to Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea virus.

It’s estimated that five million piglets have been killed by the virus, one million in January alone.

The virus first showed up in Illinois in April and has spread across almost the entire hog-producing regions in the United States and in January into Ontario.