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1. Brazil on high alert as bird flu spreads further South
2. US Congress vs rising egg prices
3. US Pork industry review & forecast
Meat Company News
Agrosuper
Agrosuper has opened its first microbiological sampling laboratory at the San Vicente Plant, making it the first company in the meat industry and exporter that processes food and also performs molecular analysis. The initiative’s primary aim is to strengthen safety and quality management throughout its value chain and streamline decision-making. Agrosuper plans to implement this technology in other plants and animal husbandry sectors in the future.
Cherkizovo
Cherkizovo Group, Russia’s largest meat producer, ranked number one in terms of sausage sales in the e-commerce channel in Russia, with sausages accounting for a growth of over 1.5 times in online sales in 2022. According to NielsenIQ, the turnover of Russian sausage retailers grew by 12% in 2022 to RUB 372.4 billion, with Cherkizovo Group maintaining its leadership in the categories of dry sausages and ham. The company’s sausages ranked first in terms of online sales, with a 12% share by value in the fourth quarter of 2022, and are available on various e-commerce platforms in Russia.
Copacol
Sergio José Ferrari, a member of the Nova Aurora cooperative, has become the record holder for remuneration in pig farming at Copacol with a payment of R$54.92 per head of pig. He ended January with the best score of 649 IEP points among all the producers who delivered hogs to the cooperative. Ferrari works with family labor to finish 1,200 heads and credits the achievement to the teamwork between the cooperative and the producers in the integration system.
JBS & Tyson Foods Packers
Sanitation Services Inc. has paid $1.5 million in civil money penalties after the US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found that the company employed at least 102 children, aged 13 to 17, in hazardous occupations in 13 meat processing facilities across eight states. The company employed the children to work overnight shifts cleaning meat processing equipment, including dangerous powered equipment, in hazardous environments involving hazardous chemicals. The Fair Labor Standards Act assessed a fine of $15,138 per minor-aged employee who was employed in violation of the law. The company has also agreed to comply with the FLSA’s child labor provisions in all its operations nationwide, and to employ an outside compliance specialist to ensure future compliance with the law.
To celebrate its 40th anniversary, Tyson Foods’ Joslin beef plant donated 40,000 pounds of food, including ground beef, Italian sausage, chicken drumsticks, bacon, and other chicken products, to the Davenport-based River Bend Food Bank. This donation will provide over 160,000 meals to help address hunger relief in the local community. Tyson and the food bank have partnered multiple times to combat hunger relief in the Joslin and Quad Cities area, and the protein donation will be available to all of the food bank’s pantry partners to distribute to those in need. In the fiscal year 2022, the food bank distributed an equivalent of 17.2 million meals through its 400-plus hunger relief partners in 23 counties in eastern Iowa and western Illinois.
Hormel
Hormel Food Corps has received a 15-year tax abatement from the Mower County Board of Commissioners to build a market rate community childcare center in Austin, Minnesota. The estimated $5 million project aims to address the significant shortage of childcare capacity in the area, with Austin alone being short 531 slots and the whole of Mower County short 809 slots. The proposed location of the over 13,000 square foot center, which is set to break ground this spring, would situate it on a piece of land recently purchased by Hormel Foods along 17th Avenue NW. The location is expected to make it easier for parents to drop off and pick up their children and provide quick access to the 18th Avenue NW corridor.
Maple Leaf
On Friday, Maple Leaf Foods Inc. (TSE:MFI) stock price crossed over its 200-day moving average, which is at C$23.49. The stock reached a high of C$26.59 and closed at C$26.43, with a trading volume of 143,509 shares.
Olymel
Olymel operates a modern food processing plant in Cornwall, employing 500 people, and producing fresh sliced bacon and pre-cooked bacon products. The company plans to create 25 new jobs and invest $2 million in plant upgrades as it consolidates production from two smaller plants in Quebec. Olymel is focusing on recruitment efforts, including hiring foreign workers and increasing wages. The Human Resources Manager at Olymel Cornwall praised the existing workforce and expressed a desire to add more employees.
Smithfield
PETA has released a report detailing sanitation and animal welfare violations at Smithfield Foods’ Tar Heel slaughterhouse, the world’s largest pig slaughterhouse in North Carolina. The violations include feces and foreign material found on pigs’ body parts meant for human consumption, roaches, inadequate cleaning routines, and meat being dropped on the contaminated floor and returned to processing. Live pigs were also mistreated, with workers attempting to force pigs with debilitating disorders into the facility to be killed. The report concludes by urging people to go vegan and order a free vegan starter kit from PETA.
Sysco
Sygma, a subsidiary of Sysco Corp., has opened a facility in Burlington, Kentucky. The 330,648-square-foot facility on Lakeland Park Drive will employ 300 people and marks Sysco’s first facility in the region.
Tanmiah
Saudi Arabia’s Tanmiah Food Company has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with European poultry producer MHP to establish a joint venture focused on closing the production gap in the Saudi domestic poultry sector. The partnership will develop and operate poultry breeding facilities, including a greenfield hatchery to produce 108 million hatching eggs annually, and invest in feed milling facilities to produce 137,000 tonnes of feed per year. The Agriculture Development Fund of Saudi Arabia will fund the initiatives. The deal is aligned with the food security goals of Saudi Vision 2030.
Dairy Company News
Dairy Farmers of America
Around 50 workers at the Dairy Farmers of America plant in St. Albans, Vermont, have unanimously voted to go on strike on March 5 if they are unable to reach a contract agreement with the company. The workers have been without a contract since July and the union has filed a federal complaint against DFA alleging the company made unlawful changes to workers’ conditions of employment. In response, a DFA official stated that the company is negotiating in good faith with the union. Meanwhile, a federal program is offering $13 million in grants to improve conditions for dairy plant workers, increase dairy industry capacity and help alleviate pressure on workers.
Fonterra
In New Zealand’s Smith v Fonterra Co-Operative Group Limited case, a resident is suing seven companies in the agricultural and energy sectors. The allegations against them include causing harm, being careless, and violating a new legal obligation to stop contributing to the damage of the climate system. This includes dangerous human-caused interference with the climate system, and the negative effects of climate change due to their emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Lactalis
French food company Lactalis has been charged over a five-year-old scandal in which dozens of babies fell sick from salmonella-contaminated powdered formula milk. Prosecutors have charged the group’s Celia Laiterie de Craon factory for serious fraud, involuntarily bodily harm and a failure to carry out a recall order for the tainted milk. Lactalis was criticised in 2017 for failing to address the problem publicly for weeks after several babies were diagnosed with salmonella poisoning. The company said it was cooperating with the investigation.
Seafood Company News
Mowi
Dawnfresh Seafoods, which filed for administration last year, has sold its fish farming subsidiary to Mowi Scotland. The deal, for an undisclosed sum, includes seven fish farms and five hatcheries across Scotland and Northern Ireland, saving 67 jobs. The group previously operated processing facilities in Uddingston and Arbroath, which were sold to Thistle Seafoods and Lossie Seafoods respectively. The administrators of Dawnfresh have now ended the involvement of former owners, including Raleigh and Alastair Salvesen, Darren Allan and John Christopher Young.
Skretting
Skretting, a division of Dutch group Nutreco, has inaugurated a new high-end production facility for shrimp and fish feed in Mangrol, Surat. It allows the feed manufacturer to further enhance its support for the Indian aquaculture sector.
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