As we continue to see the widespread effects that the Coronavirus is causing, local hog producers are running into major issues.
BrennCo Inc. out of Van Wert is used to moving more than 2,500 hogs a week to food plants for processing. This past week, the two plants that BrennCo would sell to have either slowed down their production or stopped it all together. The Tyson Plant in Indiana is one of them.
Keaton Brenneman, the barn manager at Van Wert says this is causing a huge disturbance to the supply chain, and there is a massive backlog of hogs. Their next move was to either find something to do with the thousands of pounds worth of pork or to euthanize the hogs to make room for the piglets that are expected to come in the next few weeks.
Brenneman took to Facebook with a post saying they would be selling their hogs at around $.50/lb. He was looking for people who were interested in buying the pigs and capable of butchering it themselves, as many local butcher shops are also backed up.
The overwhelming response from the community came unexpected, and both the Facebook post and Brenneman’s phone started blowing up with people interested in buying hogs. They were supposed to start selling the hogs at a first-come, first-serve basis at noon, but trucks with trailers lined the front of their business starting at 10 that morning.
“These pigs spend 5 months in the barn, you know, you put all this work into it and then you have to just--waste it," says Brenneman. "That’s such an awful thing and I hate it. So it’s just good to see that these pigs are being used to feed people. ”
People came from all over to buy hogs from BrennCo. A lot of buyers split the cost of several hogs with other people to share. Some are even donating the fresh meat to feed others in their community.
“It’s nice when you’re so fortunate ourselves, and we feel that we are in this country, that it’s nice to give back to people that are less fortunate," says Chris Tuski, a buyer from Michigan. He is planning to butcher and donate two of his hogs to a soup kitchen in Flint.
This is another example of how quickly Americans can adapt to situations while still helping each other out.
“The ingenuity of the American people that actually say ‘We can buy these pigs and we can process them ourselves, and then pass them out to other families that can’t necessarily do that kind of work themselves,’ it really works out well and it’s a testament to this country and the flexibility we have with capitalism,” says Tuski.
BrennCo will continue to sell the hogs next weekend at the barn in VanWert. With many people trying to get a hold of BrennCo to buy a hog, they say that they can only sell to people willing to buy 10 or more as of now and that they are not able to speak to every person who reaches out due to the high volume.
You can reach Keaton Brenneman at 419-905-8326.
