Tyson has been outspoken in recent weeks about the ways that the ongoing pandemic is affecting the food supply chain. The company has closed down some of its facilities due to COVID-19 outbreaks, but it is also going to lower the cost of beef so that families can still put food on the table.
Tyson Foods issued a full page letter in The New York Times at the end of April warning individuals that the food supply chain is breaking. In part, the letter read:
As pork, beef, and chicken plants are being forced to close, even for short periods of time, millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain. As a result, there will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able to reopen our facilities that are currently closed.
Subsequently, many grocery stores (like Kroger and Costco) put limits on how much meat customers can buy at once. Companies have also begun up-charging for meat products, and according to Fox News, and in some cases, the prices have gone up 2.6 percent.
Although the company is still recovering from having to close some of its facilities, Tyson wants cut prices on some of their beef products to help people stay fed. Cuts like beef chuck, round roasts, ground beef products, and meat trays will be discounted up to 20 or 30 percent. These discounts will last through the end of the week.
This offer is done not just to help consumers, a spokesperson for Tyson said, but also to help move the food supply chain along: “We believe the move will also benefit other segments of the supply chain, including the cattle producers, since the objective is to help maintain beef consumption as our plants return to more normal levels of production and work through the backlog of available cattle.”
