Jeremy Jenkins has been running his meat processing business in Mount Victory, northwest of Columbus, for about a year. It鈥檚 typical for him to be booked up for several weeks, but now he鈥檚 turning away customers every day because he won鈥檛 be able to handle their job before Christmas.
鈥淩ight now we鈥檙e booked out almost seven months on processing and we鈥檙e running probably 140% of our capacity,鈥� he says. 鈥淎 lot of long days.鈥�
He notes many of now are for hogs that haven鈥檛 even been born yet.
The surge in business is a ripple effect of pandemic-related closures or slowdowns at major meat processors around the Midwest. None of those major processors call Ohio home, but their absence has meant a sharp increase in demand at the smaller operations like Jenkins'.
In states like Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota, facilities that would ordinarily process tens of thousands of animals a day are due to employees contracting COVID-19.
鈥淭o put it in context, at least as of a few weeks ago, people were talking about there being a 40% drop in processing capacity for pork,鈥� says Michigan State University agriculture economist Trey Malone. 鈥淏ut that 40% drop still represents 200,000 hogs a day鈥攁 day.鈥�
Even working overtime, Jenkins goes through about 20 animals in a week. To say hog farmers face a bottleneck is an understatement.
Malone says the U.S. food supply chain operates on the principles of just-in-time production, a manufacturing strategy popularized by Toyota. It relies on precise timing to ensure you have exactly what you need, when you need it.
When it works well, manufacturers can reduce overhead costs, and deliver products cheaply to consumers. But it鈥檚 a complicated bit of choreography.
Ty Higgins from the Ohio Farm Bureau says when there's a disruption further down the line, farmers don鈥檛 have many options.
鈥淔or some livestock producers, that means putting cattle out to pasture for another week or two,鈥� Higgins says. 鈥淎nd for a hog producer, that might mean changing the rations for the animals so that they grow slower, because with every day that goes by, those hogs get bigger and those barns get smaller.鈥�
In Tuscarawas County, Lyndsey Teter runs a with her husband. She says they鈥檙e lucky鈥攖hey got their processing dates locked in early. Like Higgins, she says farmers can alter feed to slow down a pig鈥檚 growth, but that only buys a few weeks, and it鈥檚 expensive.
鈥淚t鈥檚 $900 a week to keep everybody fed and we only have 150 hogs on the ground at all times,鈥� she says. 鈥淪o if you鈥檝e got thousands of those, maintaining that daily cost is not really feasible.鈥�
Malone says the pandemic complicates that picture further. People are driving less, so ethanol production has plummeted. That means less distiller鈥檚 grain, an ethanol byproduct hog farmers could be using to delay their animals鈥� growth.
Malone says farmers are getting squeezed on both ends鈥攗nable to sell their animals and unable to find feed. Farmers in some states
Although it hasn鈥檛 reached that point in Ohio, overbooked and overworked is becoming the norm for processors around the state. Jenkins sees a silver lining.
鈥淚 think they鈥檙e going to see the quality of the product that they鈥檙e going to get, and maybe [it will] keep them coming back,鈥� Jenkins says.
For the time being, he admits it鈥檚 good for business. As for the long days, he just shrugs it off.
鈥淵ou鈥檝e got to make hay while the sun is shining,鈥� he says.
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