JBS Grand Island Meatpacking Fire Halts Processing

A fire at the JBS Grand Island, NE, processing facility halted beef packing production Monday. Local firefighters said the blaze burned the roof of the facility’s rendering section. The JBS Grand Island facility is a two-shift, beef-processing plant employing more than 3,600 people. The facility has a daily processing capacity of 6,000 head and slaughters roughly 5% of U.S. cattle.

JBS in June announced a $130 million facility improvement effort to increase production capacity at both the Grand Island facility and another in Omaha. The impacts of the fire and how it was started are unclear. JBS told Reuters this week they expected to reopen the facility Tuesday.

In 2019, a fire at Tyson’s Holcomb, KS facility took out 30,000 head of weekly processing capacity, with immediate and still lingering market disruption issues.

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