In a company news release the following announcement was made:

National Beef will suspend production at the company’s Iowa Premium beef processing plant in Tama, Iowa until the week of April 20. It was announced last week that our regularly scheduled cleanup would be moved to the current week of April 6.

This week numerous employees have tested positive for COVID-19 and additional team members are exhibiting flu-like symptoms. Therefore, out of abundance of caution and concern for the health and well-being of our employees the company will suspend production at the facility for five more days.

We are committed to the safety of our employees at all our locations and will continue to explore additional measures that will protect them. To date, we have taken the following precautions:

We have aligned our operational procedures with recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regarding COVID-19.

Facilities are thoroughly sanitized and disinfected daily following our strict sanitation protocols. We have also increased sanitation in employee common areas and increased access to hand sanitization stations for team members.

Our special Emergency Response Pay and Benefits provisions require employees who don’t feel well to stay home and includes relaxed attendance policies.

We are conducting temperature screenings of all employees and personnel entering our facilities to help us identify and isolate employees that have a fever, one of the COVID-19 symptoms.

In common and break areas, we have increased physical space to allow for employees to practice increased social distancing

Employee break and lunch schedules have been staggered to reduce congestion in hallways, break areas, locker rooms and additional common areas.

We are providing disposable face masks to employees for voluntary personal use to provide some protection from exposure to airborne droplets.

In these unprecedented times, National Beef continues to be committed to our employee safety, working with our cattle suppliers and ensuring the availability of food for customers and consumers across the country.