Innovation in Butchery due to COVID?

SPRINGDALE, Ark.––Deboning livestock and slicing up chickens has long been hands-on labor. Low-paid workers using knives and saws work on carcasses moving steadily down production lines. It is labor-intensive and dangerous work.

Those factory floors have been especially conducive to spreading coronavirus. In April and May, more than 17,300 meat and poultry processing workers in 29 states were infected and 91 died, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A growing consumer appetite for products such as deboned chicken and skinless meat has required more people on processing lines. Decades ago, most Americans bought whole chickens. McDonald's Corp.'s introduction of Chicken McNuggets in the 1980s changed that. Roughly 85% of chicken eaten in the U.S. today is parts like breasts and wings or products such as chicken fingers, according to the National Chicken Council.