Smithfield closes South Dakota pork plant because of virus

Smithfield Foods, the world's biggest pork producer, is closing its plant in South Dakota indefinitely after hundreds of employees tested positive for the coronavirus.

The company -- owned by Hong Kong-listed WH Group --announced the closing on Sunday as state health officials said 293 of the 730 people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in South Dakota work at the Sioux Falls plant, which employs about 3,700 people.

The plant accounts for 4 percent to 5 percent of US production, the company said in a statement. Smithfield's CEO warned that closures across the country are taking American meat supplies "perilously close to the edge" of shortfalls.

"The closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously close to the edge in terms of our meat supply," Kenneth Sullivan said in a statement.

Other US meat processing plants have also closed temporarily because of outbreaks of the coronavirus, including Cargill Inc. and JBS USA and a Tyson Foods Inc plant in Columbus Junction, Iowa, where more than two dozen employees tested positive for the virus.

Smithfield originally planned to close the Sioux Falls plant for three days. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and Sioux Falls Mayor Paul Ten Haken on Saturday asked for the closure to be extended to at least 14 days, saying in a letter to the company that it needed to "do more".

Smithfield said the plant's 3,700 employees will receive pay for at least two weeks during the shutdown.