Jayson Penn, CEO of Pilgrim’s Pride, said as the company deals with the COVID-19 pandemic, he welcomes the new guidelines for poultry processors from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the recent executive order from President Donald Trump to keep meat and poultry plants operational.
Penn made his comments during the question-and-answer period of a quarterly earnings call, held on April 30.
The CDC recently offered guidance that advises that “critical infrastructure workers may be permitted to continue work following potential exposure to COVID-19, provided they remain asymptomatic and additional precautions are implemented to protect them and the community. Specifically, the new guidance reiterates many already identified mitigation measures including social distancing, engineering controls to minimize potential contact, protective gear and face coverings, shift staggering, health screenings, training and awareness, and financial incentives not to report to work sick.
Meanwhile, Trump’s executive order, signed on April 28, gives U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue to take all appropriate action to ensure that meat and poultry processors continue operations consistent with the guidance for their operations jointly issued by the CDC and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
Penn said he looks forward to Pilgrim’s, the second largest poultry company in the United States, to operating under such guidance.
“We believe that the recent executive order will provide a consistent, and sound and guided platform for which we can rely upon as we navigate our business across the 14 states in which we do business here in the U.S.,” said Penn.
“We welcome the consistency and we look forward to working with local health and labor leadership, really so we can continue to do two things together that we both have in common which is to keep our team members safe and continue to provide safe food for our communities and our country.”
While some poultry plants in the United States have made the decision to suspend operations amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Pilgrim’s Pride has been able to keep its facilities in production. There has been some absenteeism, but so far, it has not had much of a negative impact on business, he said.
“Our absenteeism has varied across our business, but our team has managed this very well,” he said. “Our commercial teams have worked very closely with our key customers to simplify our mix, so that we create a more optimal footprint. Just because we have some absenteeism does not mean we have to be less efficient on the back end of our facilities.”
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