Food Supply and COVID-19: Breaking the Chain

This case uses the impact of the global pandemic on the concentrated meatpacking industry to explore management of supply chain disruptions. COVID-19 had created massive problems at Tyson Foods, with high infection rates among workers, plants closing, and farmers unable to deliver livestock to processing plants. This translated into shortages at grocery stores. Then the president of the United States issued an executive order that meat-processing plants were to stay open to ensure the food supply. At the time, Tyson Foods had decided to close the majority of its facilities, but with the order, the meat-processing giant could remain open and workers could not hold the company liable if they got sick on the job. Tyson Foods struggled with workers getting sick, with creating protocols for clean line work, and with getting products to supermarkets. The material in this case brings the opportunity to explore a vitally important supply chain, the resiliency of that supply chain, and important decisions around fragility, security, fairness, and employees' welfare. In addition, the case allows exploration around how Lean operations leads to efficiencies, but supply chains may not be resilient to disruption. Furthermore, examining John Tyson's public letter in select newspapers provides the opportunity to explore crisis communication and crisis leadership. Excerpt UVA-OM-1691 Mar. 5, 2021 Food Supply and COVID-19: Breaking the Chain Lydia Thomas, a first-year consultant in McKinsey and Co.'s (McKinsey's) Agriculture Practice in Chicago, was working from home on April 26, 2020, when she read the startling ad placed by John Tyson, the chairman of the board at meat-processing giant Tyson Foods (Tyson), in the Sunday New York Times and the Washington Post (Exhibit 1). America's food supply chain is breaking, wrote John Tyson. Thomas found herself nodding as she read. Ever since COVID-19, the novel coronavirus first discovered in Wuhan, China, had spread rapidly across the globe to create a worldwide pandemic, everything had changed in Thomas's world. She had an uncle who was infected, a sister working as a nurse at an overrun hospital, and parents trying to manage their family cattle farm near Lincoln, Nebraska. For the last month, she'd been sheltering in place to stay safe. She'd still been able to research a sustainability analysis for an agricultural client, but reading John Tyson's declaration gave Thomas a sudden suspicion that her work life was about to change. Just then, the phone rang in Thomas's South Side apartment. . . .