Cargill and Tyson Food adjust to the shift in demand

Meat giants Cargill and Tyson Food are making decisions “by the hour” to adjust to the sudden shift in demand from foodservice towards retail.

Cargill chief risk officer Brian Sikes said the typical 50:50 split in demand had drastically shifted to around 85% in favour of retail. “I want to reassure people that there’s plenty of meat in the system and we’re also producing more than we were a month ago to fill orders,” said Sikes. “We’ve enhanced our protocols and followed all the CDC guidelines (extra sanitising, eliminating visitors and so on), but we have to keep watching and are making decisions by the hour.”

Tyson Food is likewise adapting supply chains to adjust to the shift in demand. President Dean Banks said: “Our capability to shift processes in individual plants is allowing us to quickly pivot to producing retail items. For example, changing packaging from a foodservice product to a retail product can occur quickly because of the built-in flexibility of our operations. This is the most significant shift we’ve ever initiated. But there’s plenty of food available,” he added.