A slew of U.S. ethanol plants have shut down as fuel demand has collapsed during the coronavirus outbreak, and meatpackers have been hit by a worrying side-effect: less carbon dioxide is now available to chill beef, poultry and pork. "We're headed for a train wreck in terms of the CO2 market," said Geoff Cooper, president of the Renewable Fuels Association industry group.
A slew of U.S. ethanol plants have shut down as fuel demand has collapsed during the coronavirus outbreak, and meatpackers have been hit by a worrying side-effect: less carbon dioxide is now available to chill beef, poultry and pork. "We're headed for a train wreck in terms of the CO2 market," said Geoff Cooper, president of the Renewable Fuels Association industry group.
Major U.S. meat companies said on Monday they shut three facilities that produce pork and beef in Iowa and Pennsylvania in the latest disruption to the country's food supply chain from the coronavirus outbreak.
Four workers at an Archer Daniels
Midland Co (ADM) corn processing facility in Clinton, Iowa, have tested positive for coronavirus, the company said on Monday. The employees and those they have come in contact with have been quarantined and the facility is being deep cleaned to prevent further spread, the Chicago-based grain trader and processor said.
Brazilian food processor BRF
SA (BRFS) said on Monday the Chinese customs authority has cleared its Dourados poultry plant to resume exports to China, raising the total number of BRF units authorized to sell to the Asian country to 14. BRF said Dourados has capacity to slaughter 130,000 birds per day.
Luckin Coffee Chairman Charles Zhengyao Lu and Chief Executive Jenny Zhiya Qian have handed over shares in the embattled Chinese coffee chain to lenders after a company controlled by Lu's family defaulted on a $518 million margin loan, one of the banks said on Monday.
Luckin Coffee Chairman Charles Zhengyao Lu and Chief Executive Jenny Zhiya Qian have handed over shares in the embattled Chinese coffee chain to lenders after a company controlled by Lu's family defaulted on a $518 million margin loan, one of the banks said on Monday.
Migrant workers drawn by attractive pay are keeping Switzerland's asparagus supplies moving during the coronavirus crisis despite fears they could be kept out by border restrictions. Seasonal farm workers in Switzerland earn about 3,300 Swiss francs a month for a 55-hour work week, about half the national average in one of the world's most expensive countries.
Mandatory coronavirus quarantines of seasonal foreign workers in Canada could hurt that country's fruit and vegetable output this year, and travel problems related to the pandemic could also leave U.S. farmers with fewer workers than usual. Foreign labor is critical to farm production in both countries, where domestic workers shun the hard physical labor and low pay.
Switzerland faces a shortage of the raw material needed to make disinfectant to tackle the coronavirus pandemic after the country abandoned its emergency reserve of 10,000 tonnes of ethanol two years ago, newspaper Tages-Anzeiger reported on Monday. Switzerland keeps emergency stockpiles of everything from coffee, wheat, rice and cooking oil.
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