Tyson Sinks With Virus Pushing Up Costs and Clouding Outlook
- Higher retail volume won’t offset food-service losses in meat
- Reports $100 million derivative loss, impacting beef, chicken
A man shops in the meat section at a grocery store in Washington D.C., U.S., on April 28.
Photographer: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
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Tyson Foods Inc. shares tumbled after the top U.S. meat supplier forecast lower output and higher costs, with the meat-industry’s outlook so murky it couldn’t offer annual financial guidance.
An unprecedented wave of plant shutdowns and slowdowns because of the coronavirus is set to continue, resulting in higher operating costs and lower volume for the rest of fiscal 2020, Tyson said in a statement on second-quarter earnings, which missed estimates amid derivative losses. That may mean “short-term outages” in availability for some meat products at grocery stores.