Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1287953
Rick Schnieders, former CEO of the global food distributor, Sysco Foods, spends a lot of time thinking about food supply chains. During his 27-year-career at Sysco, Schnieders was immersed in the fine details that ensure the raw products from America's farms and ranches get to your plate, a subject that most Americans don't think about; that is, until they see empty shelves at the grocery store. "Food supply chains are not visible to the average consumer. ere is so much that goes into it, so much physical and information infrastructure. And every single point along the way has to work. If one part of the supply chain goes down, like we experienced in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the system buckles and breaks," Schnieders told me from his residence in New Mexico. "e current system is actually very fragile." For a couple of months in the spring when the pandemic was taking hold around the country, consumers noticed that fresh meat products were not readily available at grocery stores. e causes of the shortages were manifold and entirely predictable, according to Schnieders. As the disease spread through the nation's large meatpacking plants, many were forced to close. e supply of meat decreased and then, predictably, consumer demand surged when news of the shortages hit. is led to empty shelves in the meat department. 37 farm406 Meat packing in the U.S. is heavily consolidated. e top four U.S. packers process more than 80% of all steers and heifers and they do it in relatively few processing plants. As a result, when the coronavirus outbreak shut down just 12 slaughterhouses, that reduced U.S. pork production by 25% and beef by 10%, according to Bloomberg News. Even though Montana is cale country, Montanans were not immune from seeing depleted shelves. e coronavirus caused the invisible supply chain to become visible. All of a sudden, Montanans started to pay more aention to where their food was coming from and how they could decrease the distance between the farm and their dinner plate. Montana Meat Processors Come Into the Spotlight During Coronavirus Pandemic BY ALEXIS BONOGOFSKY • PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEXIS BONOGOFSKY Beef and hog carcasses hang in the cooler at Pioneer Meats in Big Timber, Montana. Brian and Kary Engle stand outside their meat processing facility, Pioneer Meats, in Big Timber, Montana.