Tyson Foods temporarily cutting prices on beef products amid spike in grocery prices
FOX NEWS - Tyson Foods, one of the largest meat-processing companies in the world, announced this week that the company will be cutting prices on select beef products amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Their announcement comes as grocery prices across the United States continue to soar, increasing by 2.6 percent from March to April.
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Tyson Foods said the discounts are designed to help “keep beef on family tables” as the company recovers from the temporary closures of several of its facilities due to coronavirus outbreaks or staffing shortages caused by the pandemic. To that end, the company will be cutting prices on chuck and round roasts, ground beef products, and meat trays, some of which will be discounted by up to 20 or 30 percent.
The discounts will be in effect “for the remainder of the week,” Tyson Foods confirmed.
(Photo by John Lamparski/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images))
“The ongoing pandemic has disrupted the food system. It’s created challenges for our operations, many of our customers, and consumers,” reads a statement shared by Tyson Foods. “These are unprecedented times, and although they have been difficult, Tyson believes that the future is bright.”
In Tyson’s statement, the company claimed this decision would benefit not only the consumer, but those working in the supply chain and cattle industry, both of which faced hurdles in recent months.
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“We believe the move will also benefit other segments of the supply chain, including the cattle producers, since the objective is to help maintain beef consumption as our plants return to more normal levels of production and work through the backlog of available cattle,” Tyson Foods wrote.
“This action is one of many that Tyson is taking to support its customers, consumers, and communities during this unprecedented crisis.”
Over the last several weeks, Tyson Foods facilities across the country had been forced to temporarily shutter following issues related to COVID-19, prompting chairman John H. Tyson to take out full-page ads in The New York Times, Washington Post and Arkansas Democrat-Gazette to outline the company’s response to the ongoing coronavirus health crisis. He also stated that further closures — not only of Tyson Foods facilities, but competitors’ facilities as well — would put more stress on the nation’s food supply.
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“The food supply chain is breaking,” he warned.
In May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics further confirmed that the overall price of groceries in the U.S. had jumped by 2.6 percent in April, effectively making it the biggest price increase, from one month to the next, since February 1974. The prices of meat products alone rose 4.3 percent in the same month.