Hello and welcome to the Americano podcast. My name is Freddie Gray. I'm the deputy editor of The Spectator and the editor of its US edition. We thought that 2020 was going to be all about the presidential election, but now it will forever be the year of the pandemic.

So instead, Americano is going to look at how COVID-19 is transforming the United States and its

politics. There's a lot to talk about, perhaps even more so than before. So please keep tuning in.

I'm joined today by Michael Brendan Doherty, who is a senior writer at the National Review and a great friend of mine.

And we're going to be asking, where's the beef?

Michael, I say where's the beef, and I should clarify it for listeners immediately,

because you wrote an excellent piece under that headline,

asking if America is going to run out of meat or be unable to provide enough meat

for itself and the perhaps huge implications that could have on the presidential election in November.

Could you give us a little summary of your argument?

So America's meat industry, both like pork and beef, it's a domestic industry.

Most of the meat consumed in America is from America, is raised in America.

And the processing and packaging of this meat is done at industrial scale in a shockingly small number of plants.

You know, 70% of America's pork goes through just 20 processing plants.

And I think the number is like 60% of America's beef goes through the 10 largest beef processing plants.

That's for butchery, packaging, and then shipping to supermarkets.

And what has happened is there have been outbreaks in some of the largest plants that have led

to shutdowns, mass absences, and we have, you know, the CEOs of some of these

companies like Tyson saying that, you know, 10% or 15% of America's pork is going to just

not make it to shelves. Because of the backups, we're having some people who raise poultry

are saying that they're going to end up having to plow under millions of chickens

rather than send them off for slaughter and consumption. And this will lead to empty store shelves

...