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 </figure>By GREG DOERING <a href="https://kansaslivingmagazine.com/articles/2020/05/01/food-supply-chain-adjusting-to-second-wave-of-disruption">Kansas Living Magazine</a>The nation’s food supply is facing a second wave of disruption as Covid-19 continues to wreak havoc on our food system.Just as distributors were getting a handle on the surging market at 
grocery stores and decimated demand at restaurants, the pandemic 
infiltrated packing plants crimping the meat supply.<h2>FIRST WAVE</h2>“While there was a big demand boost for food in grocery stores, we 
lost much of the market in food away from home,” says Jayson Lusk, head 
of agriculture economics at Purdue University. “Just using milk as the 
example, if you have a processing facility that’s packaging milk in the 
small containers for schools, we don’t have school going on anymore. 
It’s not like that plant can suddenly switch to pumping out gallon 
jugs.”The supply chain for grocery stores typically forecasts steady growth
 between 3 and 5 percent. In the beginning of the pandemic, sales surged
 25 to 30 percent, with certain items exceeding even those lofty 
numbers.“I think one of the things this scenario has shown is just how 
complicated our food system is,” Lusk says. “It’s a food system that is 
in constant evolution, constant change, but a lot of it is pretty 
gradual.”Doug Baker, vice president of industry relations-private brands at 
the Food Marketing Institute, says his organization helped overcome some
 of the logistical challenges of rerouting food destined for restaurants
 to grocery stores.“It’s not an easy process to bring in a new supplier partner,” Baker 
says. “There’s a significant number of activities that need to happen in
 order to get that supplier set up in the system. That’s difficult even 
if they’re doing retail packaging. It becomes even more difficult if 
they’re doing food service packs.”One of the challenges involved working with government agencies to 
relax rules on food packaging on things like labels, which have 
differing requirements for institutional consumers versus those buying 
for use in their homes.“My perspective is by and large, the food system did a remarkable 
job,” Lusk says. “We had this initial run and stocking-up phase, but 
that subsided pretty quickly.”<h2>SECOND WAVE</h2>Grocery stores and their suppliers made adjustments to increase 
product availability and demand settled into a more manageable level 
just as the virus started to disrupt processing facilities that process 
the beef, pork and poultry we eat.“So far, we know it’s been well over 20 facilities that have closed 
down,” says Michael Nepveux, an economist with the American Farm Bureau 
Federation. “In some cases, those closures are due to outbreaks within 
the facilities among the workers, and in other cases, it’s already a 
struggle to keep labor in these plants. And, when workers are afraid of 
getting sick or having vulnerable populations living with them at home, 
it makes them think twice about coming into the plant.”This has caused a ripple effect through the protein supply chain. 
While the price for retail cuts has increased, farmers and ranchers have
 seen double-digit declines in the prices they receive for live animals.The bottleneck at processing plants is the reason for the price 
discrepancy between live animals on ranches and feedlots and the price 
retailers are willing to pay for consumer-ready protein. Plants are 
slaughtering fewer animals, creating a surplus of market-ready livestock
 and a deficit of retail beef, pork and poultry.<h2>MEAT SHORTAGE</h2>The meat supply will face strain with facilities closed and 
throughput capacity reduced at others, but a shortage doesn’t mean zero 
protein at meat counters.“The data we have on animal processing numbers shows on the beef side
 we’re probably processing 25 percent fewer cattle than the same time 
last year. On the pork side it’s about 20 percent,” Lusk says. “You 
can’t have that reduction without it having some market impact.”Lusk says higher prices, more whole cuts and different packaging are 
some of the things consumers can expect to see first as the supply chain
 adjusts to the current disruption.“Hopefully they won’t see reduced availability, but I’d be lying if I
 didn’t say there aren’t some concerns there,” he says. “There’s been 
some fairly high inventories in cold storage. One challenge is those 
inventories might be packaged in ways we aren’t accustomed to seeing and
 aren’t easy to move in to grocery stores.”Baker says most current inventory problems are sporadic and regional.
 There’s also the chance grocery stores pick up some of the processing 
slack.“A lot of beef anymore for retailers is case ready,” he says, meaning
 it can go directly onto the shelf. “They still have the equipment in 
their stores — the grinders, the cutters. They might not be able to do 
some of those high-end cuts, but they can do cuts out of primals.”As distributors straighten out their supply chains, farmers and 
ranchers will continue doing their work growing safe, healthy crops and 
livestock.Kansas Living Magazine is a publication of Kansas Farm Bureau.

Food supply chain adjusting to second wave of disruption