Dive Brief:
- Hormel Foods Corp announced that it will temporarily cut 233 jobs from a Jennie-O Turkey Store plant in Minnesota, effective May 26. The company has not yet set a date for when the employees can return to work.
- This is the first time since the bird flu began that a company has enacted job cuts due to losses of turkey supply linked to the virus.
- Minnesota turkey farms have been hit hard by the bird flu, which has affected 5.5 million turkeys and egg-laying chickens thus far. The state has already declared a state of emergency because of it.
Dive Insight:
With the bird flu spanning 14 states in five months and affected 24 million birds, it's likely these layoffs won't be the last.
Last month, Hormel responded to initial worries about the bird flu, saying that the Jennie-O brand has already performed well thus far this year and that "the financial impact of bird flu will be partially offset by favorable hog prices," The Wall Street Journal reported. The company also said it believed that weather improvements would decrease the amount of outbreaks reported.
With these job cuts in place for later this month, it's unclear whether Hormel will remain so positive as the bird flu continues to spread.