July 30, 2020 • 16 mins
Tom chats with food and agriculture journalist Leah Douglas about the role of corporate concentration in the food system. Since April 2020, Douglas has mapped outbreaks of COVID-19 among workers at meat packing and meat processing plants across the nation. They discuss how the COVID-19 pandemic has brought longstanding concerns around health and safety in meat processing plants to light.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So before the COVID crisis, a lot of Americans and
politicians spent a lot of time shouting down the facebooks
of the world and big tech and big banks and
demanding that we break them up. At these these companies
have become powerful monopolies, and they essentially still and threatened
our privacy by using our data without our our permission,
and they threaten our financial security. But you know, it
(00:20):
took a global public health crisis to turn our attention
to the fact that very few companies control our food.
I'm Tom Colucio and this is Citizen Chef. So in
this episode, we'll take a look at how a handful
of food companies became so powerful, how COVID is exposing
(00:43):
the flaws in the system, and how corporate consolidation can
make our food system more resilient, protecting workers and consumers
in the process. COVID nineteen is exposed how fragile corporate
consolidation can make an industry. Consolidation really has warped the
meat packing industry. The meat companies really have all the
(01:04):
power in their relationships with all entities in the supply chain,
from the farmer to the worker, um the distributor, and
even the retailers. We are talking to Leah Douglas from
Ferm News and she covers business and politics of food
and agriculture and the environment. I've read plenty of your work.
It was good to hear. I imagine your time is
(01:25):
in need right now, since you've been talking about these
issues for a long time that have kind of come
to life. Yeah, it's definitely like Yeah, the seeing everyone
talking about consolidation and meat packing, I'm like, wow, COVID,
it's clearly illustrating how the you know, it's highly concentrated
industry of meat packing not only has put their workers
(01:45):
in danger, but has it just kind of exposed how
resilient our our food system really is. So I thought
you'd be a great person to talk to about this.
First question, you tell me the numbers. How concentrated is
meat processing? How many companies A few companies, I should say,
UM control how much more? Maybe four or five companies
(02:07):
that control in the area of eight of our meat
packing industry in the US. And that control that includes
some companies that UM, you know you'll see their brands
in the supermarket, like Tyson Foods, Perdue, UM, Pilgrim's Pride,
and especially in the chicken space, a lot of consumers
know those names. And it also includes companies like cargill
(02:28):
Um JBS, which is a Brazilian company, Smithfield Foods, which
is the largest pork packer in the world, is a
Chinese own company. The chicken industry is a little bit
slightly more diversified, but you'll still see maybe sixty controlled
by four or five firms, and there's a lot of overlaps.
So for instance, Tyson is active in beef, pork, and chicken,
(02:49):
and you'll see, you know, some of the same names
come up again and again. Um. So in the chicken space,
you know, one company may control. Additionally, you know more
of the market share a certain region, so um you know,
farmer might might experience that you know, in in his
state or in her state, there's only two companies operating.
It's Pilgrim's Pride or Tyson Um and so you know,
(03:12):
in that market functionally those two companies each each control um,
but in a different state it might it might be
a few more. So it sort of depends on where
you are. How do we get to where we are?
Can you give us a brief history, how how we
got here? How this concentration happened in meat packing, so
we used to have a much more diversified meat economy
(03:33):
in the US. There were a few thousand independent processing
facilities that worked with many thousands of independent livestock farmers.
And we started to see a transition in the eighties
and in the nineties towards consolidation across the economy. Agriculture
was no exception. So we saw a lot of mergers
and acquisitions during those decades that rolled up power and
(03:55):
control within a few companies. And we also saw the
widespread adoption of the contract farming model, in which farmers
are tied up in contracts to specific companies for their animals.
So that really aid into the sort of free market
if you will, of you know, an independent farmer bringing
his or her animals to a slaughterhouse and selling them,
(04:16):
you know, based on a negotiation. The contract model really
sets the price, sets the buyer, and there's a lot
less flexibility in the market now, right, um, And so
how does that play out in terms of workers who
are working at a plant in these plants and imagine
they have less power, How does this play out for
(04:37):
the workers? But you now that consolidation really has warped
the meat packing industry such to that the meat companies,
and again those are the brandings that we discussed, really
have all the power in their relationships with all entities
in the supply chain, from the farmer to the worker,
the distributor, and even the retailers. So those companies really
(04:58):
set the terms of everyone wages and workplace conditions in
the case of workers, where the conditions for these workers
were already tenuous at best, and and dangerous and in
many circumstances, meat packing is inherently dangerous work. It always
has been. And you know, for many workers they had
already said for years, we have inconsistent access to bathrooms.
(05:21):
You know, we don't have paid sick time off. We're
asked to work at breakneck speeds and are regularly injured.
You know, that was just the status quo. These meat
packing plants have been asking the Department of Agriculture to
allow them to run their lines faster um for many years,
and that's you know, that results in a situation where
workers could be processing, you know, a hundred and fifty
(05:43):
chickens per minute in some cases, really just an unimaginable
pace of work, which results in all types of chronic
and traumatic injuries for workers, these are tough conditions. These
are repetitive moves, you know, for hours. Essentially, it's not
like you get a whole animal you start butchering it.
The animal is out a conveyor line and you're making
one cut and then moving it on. You're taking the
(06:03):
piece that you cut off into a sort of treadmill
and it pushes through and then the larger piece of
me just keeps going down the line. And so people
are packed very very close together. And additionally, meat packing
plants are cold, their windy, workers are working in very
close proximity, shoulder to shoulder. There's been pretty successful penetration
of unionizing and some some meat packing plants, so we
(06:25):
do see you know, many workers in those plants do
have a union, but the companies are resistant to providing
better workplace conditions and stronger benefits. And absolutely that's been
really the catalyst for the crisis for seeing now during
the COVID nineteen pandemic. So really, if you had to
design the place where COVID nineteen outbreaks would be most
(06:46):
likely to happen, a meat packing plant is pretty close
to what the virus would probably see as an ideal
place to spread. You have been mapping out processing plants,
meet packing, UH facilities that have outbreaks and how many
deaths have been reported? What is your your your data
(07:08):
showing you right now. I just updated the data before
hopping on this call. As of April thirty, we're seeing
about ninety eight meat packing and food processing plants experiencing
outbreaks of COVID nineteen, and over fifty workers, according to
my analysis, have been confirmed positive so tested and positive
and or reported by union, reported by the employer, and
(07:31):
a test is almost always involved in that confirmation. And additionally,
we've seen as of today, twenty five worker deaths of
COVID nineteen attributed to an illness that they contracted in
the workplace, and it's very safe to assume that those
numbers are extremely conservative and low. That's only reported. I'm
only tracking m absolutely confirmed cases, but there's many more
(07:53):
where um you know, either the company or the local
health officials are not releasing the data, and there's many
places for that testing is also not happening. In April
twenty nine, there was a wildcats strike at a Smithfield
plant in Nebraska, where it was supposed to be. The
plant was supposed to be closed for cleaning, and the
company reversed course on that decision, and about fifty workers
(08:15):
just spontaneously walked out and said, you know, this is
too dangerous for us to be here. So I would
be surprised if we don't see more of that. I've
seen in tracking the mapping and following the local news
quick closely, these plants have really been reticent to change
the status quo operations in most cases until there's already
an outbreak underway. This morning, we're joined by Dusty Johnson, Republican,
(08:38):
a member of the Agricultural Committee. We had a caller
about fifteen or twenty minutes ago specifically mentioned the situation
at the Smithfield pork Processing Plant. Can you just explain
what's happening there right now and the state response there.
Absolutely this is one of the largest pork processing facilities
in the country. Hundred employees. This is about six percent
(09:01):
of our whole nations for processing capacity, and it was
a hot spot. UM six d employees past another hundred
and thirty five people are connected with them have come
down with COVID nineteen. I'd like to provide a quick
update on the Tyson situation as it stands right now. Overall,
(09:22):
there have been fifty one cases that have been found
at the Tyson facility as a result of our recommendation
to proceed with universal testing. On the number of cases
that we've had associated with employees of the dem Coda
beef plant up in Aberdeen, UM right now that stands
at about seventy six cases UM that we have. We've
done a couple of site visits since then and UM
(09:45):
have worked with the management there. UM they've done great things.
They are doing symptom checks twice a day with their workforce.
A real shout out to our friends at the dem
Coode of Beef. It's definitely a frightening situation in terms
of the condition and spaced by workers UH and the
resilience of our food supply chain. I think there's definitely
(10:05):
opportunity even now for UM, you know, plants that are
not yet experiencing confirmed outbreaks to take actions to to
prevent that from happening, and not wait until the outbreak
is already underway. We'll be right back. So monopolies, you know,
(10:33):
it sounds like an old school issue. You know, at
some point in school we learned about the progressive area
in the United States, and around the turn of the
century we learned about how you know, Teddy Roosevelt broke
up the big railroads and steel and ushered in the
progressive area United States. And even going way back, Upton
Sinclair in the Jungle exposed how degregulation and consolidation in
(10:54):
the meatpack in industry led to nightmare wage, wark conditions
and low pay. Well, you know Sinclair at that book
well over century ago. And this pandemic has shown us
that the antitrust laws like the Sherban Act of eighteen
ninety which ensured free and unfair competition in the US market,
and the Clayton Act, which prohibits mergers and acquisitions that
(11:14):
may lead to monopolies, we kind of skirt those laws.
And and here we are with only four companies controlling
sixty of the pork market during a pandemic. So now
with COVID, it really exposes the weakness of this highly
concentrated system. So if you were going to create a
better system one again that looks at producers, processors, distributors,
(11:38):
how would that look that would actually again support the farmers,
support the workers, and support years That's a great question,
and I think we're seeing a lot of great examples
of people trying to bring that that possible alternative system
into reality even now, you know, coming up with these
creative workarounds in new ways to try to get food
to people. Well, you noted about the farmer. Isn't a processor?
(12:02):
That's such an important piece of how the food supply
chain works that I've been really trying to drive home
and with my readers and interviews is you know, the
processing capacity is also incredibly consolidated. So a farmer who
does anything, raises livestock, grows corn, grows fresh vegetables, They
on the farm have very limited capacity in most cases
(12:23):
in terms of you know, what they turn that into
to turn it into something that a consumer would recognize.
The food supply chain is very effective at the status quo.
It's extremely effective at moving food through the system from
the farm to the store under the conditions in which
workers are paid very little, and you know, it's extremely
fragile system, and it's not good at adapting, it's not
(12:46):
good at coming up with new flexible solutions. And so
I think there are some opportunities that farmers can try
to figure out, you know, how could we create a
more local or regional food system where we can adapt
when a crisis comes along. The policies that that you
think can come out of the federal government or USDA,
and that could buffer support to move the food system
(13:07):
to moral localized production system as opposed to have a
concentrated one. There are a lot of great proposals around
policies that could do that definitely. You know, there are
a lot of calls to formally, you know, use government
intervention to break up the consolidated food companies that we have.
There are calls to hault murders and acquisitions in that sector.
(13:27):
And this is you know, I'm referring to. This is
proposals for Members of Congress, um and those things. You know,
that's that's really a high level structural reform that go
along with implementation could could result in a more local
or diversified food system. This bill is good for our farmers.
It would place a short term moratorium on the large
(13:48):
agribusiness mergers that we're seeing across our nation. Fewer farmers
means fewer choices for consumers and higher prices. Agricultural consolid
nation is a huge problem today top four beef packers
control of the market. We need to temporarily stop these
(14:09):
big mergers, and we need to start looking out for
our farmers. There's a lot baked into the Farm Bill,
which is our biggest piece of federal you know, food
and farm policy, that really shores up the status quo.
Senator from New Jersey, thank you very much. There's a
lot of opportunity within that build to redistribute money away
from the conventional and industrial food system and to also
(14:33):
give money to more local and regional producers. These corporate
agricultural institutions that are growing so large and so powerful
are dictating practices in our contrary to our very idea
of farming in our country. I think you have scratch
the surface at the other big problem is that these
large processors um they have a youth foot for terms
(14:55):
of the amount of lobbying they do for Congress to
keep that status quo us absolutely. You know, we had
a really cut and dry example of this related to COVID,
where the chairman of Tyson Foods, John Tyson, wrote this
big letter in the New York Times and a few
other newspapers essentially calling for federal assistance to the meat
packing industry, and two days later we had an executive
(15:17):
order from President Trump saying meat packing plans must stay open,
you know, and removing authority from the states to close
those plants and the interest of public health. Um, you know,
the person who runs a small, independent processing facility in
somewhere Pennsylvania is not going to have the resources or
this way to to get an executive order passed. At
(15:38):
their behest, COVID is really highlighting a situation that we
already had, but it's really putting it on display. Thanks
to Leah Douglas and especial thanks to Christen Castri and
Laurie Silverbush of A Place at the Table. Citizen Chef
with Me Tom Clokio is a production of I Heart Media.
Christopher Hessiotis is our executive producer, Justlyn Shields is our researcher,
(16:02):
and as always, thanks for listening. M HM.
So before the COVID crisis, a lot of Americans and
politicians spent a lot of time shouting down the facebooks
of the world and big tech and big banks and
demanding that we break them up. At these these companies
have become powerful monopolies, and they essentially still and threatened
our privacy by using our data without our our permission,
and they threaten our financial security. But you know, it
(00:20):
took a global public health crisis to turn our attention
to the fact that very few companies control our food.
I'm Tom Colucio and this is Citizen Chef. So in
this episode, we'll take a look at how a handful
of food companies became so powerful, how COVID is exposing
(00:43):
the flaws in the system, and how corporate consolidation can
make our food system more resilient, protecting workers and consumers
in the process. COVID nineteen is exposed how fragile corporate
consolidation can make an industry. Consolidation really has warped the
meat packing industry. The meat companies really have all the
(01:04):
power in their relationships with all entities in the supply chain,
from the farmer to the worker, um the distributor, and
even the retailers. We are talking to Leah Douglas from
Ferm News and she covers business and politics of food
and agriculture and the environment. I've read plenty of your work.
It was good to hear. I imagine your time is
(01:25):
in need right now, since you've been talking about these
issues for a long time that have kind of come
to life. Yeah, it's definitely like Yeah, the seeing everyone
talking about consolidation and meat packing, I'm like, wow, COVID,
it's clearly illustrating how the you know, it's highly concentrated
industry of meat packing not only has put their workers
(01:45):
in danger, but has it just kind of exposed how
resilient our our food system really is. So I thought
you'd be a great person to talk to about this.
First question, you tell me the numbers. How concentrated is
meat processing? How many companies A few companies, I should say,
UM control how much more? Maybe four or five companies
(02:07):
that control in the area of eight of our meat
packing industry in the US. And that control that includes
some companies that UM, you know you'll see their brands
in the supermarket, like Tyson Foods, Perdue, UM, Pilgrim's Pride,
and especially in the chicken space, a lot of consumers
know those names. And it also includes companies like cargill
(02:28):
Um JBS, which is a Brazilian company, Smithfield Foods, which
is the largest pork packer in the world, is a
Chinese own company. The chicken industry is a little bit
slightly more diversified, but you'll still see maybe sixty controlled
by four or five firms, and there's a lot of overlaps.
So for instance, Tyson is active in beef, pork, and chicken,
(02:49):
and you'll see, you know, some of the same names
come up again and again. Um. So in the chicken space,
you know, one company may control. Additionally, you know more
of the market share a certain region, so um you know,
farmer might might experience that you know, in in his
state or in her state, there's only two companies operating.
It's Pilgrim's Pride or Tyson Um and so you know,
(03:12):
in that market functionally those two companies each each control um,
but in a different state it might it might be
a few more. So it sort of depends on where
you are. How do we get to where we are?
Can you give us a brief history, how how we
got here? How this concentration happened in meat packing, so
we used to have a much more diversified meat economy
(03:33):
in the US. There were a few thousand independent processing
facilities that worked with many thousands of independent livestock farmers.
And we started to see a transition in the eighties
and in the nineties towards consolidation across the economy. Agriculture
was no exception. So we saw a lot of mergers
and acquisitions during those decades that rolled up power and
(03:55):
control within a few companies. And we also saw the
widespread adoption of the contract farming model, in which farmers
are tied up in contracts to specific companies for their animals.
So that really aid into the sort of free market
if you will, of you know, an independent farmer bringing
his or her animals to a slaughterhouse and selling them,
(04:16):
you know, based on a negotiation. The contract model really
sets the price, sets the buyer, and there's a lot
less flexibility in the market now, right, um, And so
how does that play out in terms of workers who
are working at a plant in these plants and imagine
they have less power, How does this play out for
(04:37):
the workers? But you now that consolidation really has warped
the meat packing industry such to that the meat companies,
and again those are the brandings that we discussed, really
have all the power in their relationships with all entities
in the supply chain, from the farmer to the worker,
the distributor, and even the retailers. So those companies really
(04:58):
set the terms of everyone wages and workplace conditions in
the case of workers, where the conditions for these workers
were already tenuous at best, and and dangerous and in
many circumstances, meat packing is inherently dangerous work. It always
has been. And you know, for many workers they had
already said for years, we have inconsistent access to bathrooms.
(05:21):
You know, we don't have paid sick time off. We're
asked to work at breakneck speeds and are regularly injured.
You know, that was just the status quo. These meat
packing plants have been asking the Department of Agriculture to
allow them to run their lines faster um for many years,
and that's you know, that results in a situation where
workers could be processing, you know, a hundred and fifty
(05:43):
chickens per minute in some cases, really just an unimaginable
pace of work, which results in all types of chronic
and traumatic injuries for workers, these are tough conditions. These
are repetitive moves, you know, for hours. Essentially, it's not
like you get a whole animal you start butchering it.
The animal is out a conveyor line and you're making
one cut and then moving it on. You're taking the
(06:03):
piece that you cut off into a sort of treadmill
and it pushes through and then the larger piece of
me just keeps going down the line. And so people
are packed very very close together. And additionally, meat packing
plants are cold, their windy, workers are working in very
close proximity, shoulder to shoulder. There's been pretty successful penetration
of unionizing and some some meat packing plants, so we
(06:25):
do see you know, many workers in those plants do
have a union, but the companies are resistant to providing
better workplace conditions and stronger benefits. And absolutely that's been
really the catalyst for the crisis for seeing now during
the COVID nineteen pandemic. So really, if you had to
design the place where COVID nineteen outbreaks would be most
(06:46):
likely to happen, a meat packing plant is pretty close
to what the virus would probably see as an ideal
place to spread. You have been mapping out processing plants,
meet packing, UH facilities that have outbreaks and how many
deaths have been reported? What is your your your data
(07:08):
showing you right now. I just updated the data before
hopping on this call. As of April thirty, we're seeing
about ninety eight meat packing and food processing plants experiencing
outbreaks of COVID nineteen, and over fifty workers, according to
my analysis, have been confirmed positive so tested and positive
and or reported by union, reported by the employer, and
(07:31):
a test is almost always involved in that confirmation. And additionally,
we've seen as of today, twenty five worker deaths of
COVID nineteen attributed to an illness that they contracted in
the workplace, and it's very safe to assume that those
numbers are extremely conservative and low. That's only reported. I'm
only tracking m absolutely confirmed cases, but there's many more
(07:53):
where um you know, either the company or the local
health officials are not releasing the data, and there's many
places for that testing is also not happening. In April
twenty nine, there was a wildcats strike at a Smithfield
plant in Nebraska, where it was supposed to be. The
plant was supposed to be closed for cleaning, and the
company reversed course on that decision, and about fifty workers
(08:15):
just spontaneously walked out and said, you know, this is
too dangerous for us to be here. So I would
be surprised if we don't see more of that. I've
seen in tracking the mapping and following the local news
quick closely, these plants have really been reticent to change
the status quo operations in most cases until there's already
an outbreak underway. This morning, we're joined by Dusty Johnson, Republican,
(08:38):
a member of the Agricultural Committee. We had a caller
about fifteen or twenty minutes ago specifically mentioned the situation
at the Smithfield pork Processing Plant. Can you just explain
what's happening there right now and the state response there.
Absolutely this is one of the largest pork processing facilities
in the country. Hundred employees. This is about six percent
(09:01):
of our whole nations for processing capacity, and it was
a hot spot. UM six d employees past another hundred
and thirty five people are connected with them have come
down with COVID nineteen. I'd like to provide a quick
update on the Tyson situation as it stands right now. Overall,
(09:22):
there have been fifty one cases that have been found
at the Tyson facility as a result of our recommendation
to proceed with universal testing. On the number of cases
that we've had associated with employees of the dem Coda
beef plant up in Aberdeen, UM right now that stands
at about seventy six cases UM that we have. We've
done a couple of site visits since then and UM
(09:45):
have worked with the management there. UM they've done great things.
They are doing symptom checks twice a day with their workforce.
A real shout out to our friends at the dem
Coode of Beef. It's definitely a frightening situation in terms
of the condition and spaced by workers UH and the
resilience of our food supply chain. I think there's definitely
(10:05):
opportunity even now for UM, you know, plants that are
not yet experiencing confirmed outbreaks to take actions to to
prevent that from happening, and not wait until the outbreak
is already underway. We'll be right back. So monopolies, you know,
(10:33):
it sounds like an old school issue. You know, at
some point in school we learned about the progressive area
in the United States, and around the turn of the
century we learned about how you know, Teddy Roosevelt broke
up the big railroads and steel and ushered in the
progressive area United States. And even going way back, Upton
Sinclair in the Jungle exposed how degregulation and consolidation in
(10:54):
the meatpack in industry led to nightmare wage, wark conditions
and low pay. Well, you know Sinclair at that book
well over century ago. And this pandemic has shown us
that the antitrust laws like the Sherban Act of eighteen
ninety which ensured free and unfair competition in the US market,
and the Clayton Act, which prohibits mergers and acquisitions that
(11:14):
may lead to monopolies, we kind of skirt those laws.
And and here we are with only four companies controlling
sixty of the pork market during a pandemic. So now
with COVID, it really exposes the weakness of this highly
concentrated system. So if you were going to create a
better system one again that looks at producers, processors, distributors,
(11:38):
how would that look that would actually again support the farmers,
support the workers, and support years That's a great question,
and I think we're seeing a lot of great examples
of people trying to bring that that possible alternative system
into reality even now, you know, coming up with these
creative workarounds in new ways to try to get food
to people. Well, you noted about the farmer. Isn't a processor?
(12:02):
That's such an important piece of how the food supply
chain works that I've been really trying to drive home
and with my readers and interviews is you know, the
processing capacity is also incredibly consolidated. So a farmer who
does anything, raises livestock, grows corn, grows fresh vegetables, They
on the farm have very limited capacity in most cases
(12:23):
in terms of you know, what they turn that into
to turn it into something that a consumer would recognize.
The food supply chain is very effective at the status quo.
It's extremely effective at moving food through the system from
the farm to the store under the conditions in which
workers are paid very little, and you know, it's extremely
fragile system, and it's not good at adapting, it's not
(12:46):
good at coming up with new flexible solutions. And so
I think there are some opportunities that farmers can try
to figure out, you know, how could we create a
more local or regional food system where we can adapt
when a crisis comes along. The policies that that you
think can come out of the federal government or USDA,
and that could buffer support to move the food system
(13:07):
to moral localized production system as opposed to have a
concentrated one. There are a lot of great proposals around
policies that could do that definitely. You know, there are
a lot of calls to formally, you know, use government
intervention to break up the consolidated food companies that we have.
There are calls to hault murders and acquisitions in that sector.
(13:27):
And this is you know, I'm referring to. This is
proposals for Members of Congress, um and those things. You know,
that's that's really a high level structural reform that go
along with implementation could could result in a more local
or diversified food system. This bill is good for our farmers.
It would place a short term moratorium on the large
(13:48):
agribusiness mergers that we're seeing across our nation. Fewer farmers
means fewer choices for consumers and higher prices. Agricultural consolid
nation is a huge problem today top four beef packers
control of the market. We need to temporarily stop these
(14:09):
big mergers, and we need to start looking out for
our farmers. There's a lot baked into the Farm Bill,
which is our biggest piece of federal you know, food
and farm policy, that really shores up the status quo.
Senator from New Jersey, thank you very much. There's a
lot of opportunity within that build to redistribute money away
from the conventional and industrial food system and to also
(14:33):
give money to more local and regional producers. These corporate
agricultural institutions that are growing so large and so powerful
are dictating practices in our contrary to our very idea
of farming in our country. I think you have scratch
the surface at the other big problem is that these
large processors um they have a youth foot for terms
(14:55):
of the amount of lobbying they do for Congress to
keep that status quo us absolutely. You know, we had
a really cut and dry example of this related to COVID,
where the chairman of Tyson Foods, John Tyson, wrote this
big letter in the New York Times and a few
other newspapers essentially calling for federal assistance to the meat
packing industry, and two days later we had an executive
(15:17):
order from President Trump saying meat packing plans must stay open,
you know, and removing authority from the states to close
those plants and the interest of public health. Um, you know,
the person who runs a small, independent processing facility in
somewhere Pennsylvania is not going to have the resources or
this way to to get an executive order passed. At
(15:38):
their behest, COVID is really highlighting a situation that we
already had, but it's really putting it on display. Thanks
to Leah Douglas and especial thanks to Christen Castri and
Laurie Silverbush of A Place at the Table. Citizen Chef
with Me Tom Clokio is a production of I Heart Media.
Christopher Hessiotis is our executive producer, Justlyn Shields is our researcher,
(16:02):
and as always, thanks for listening. M HM.
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