Some shifts canceled at US and Canada meat plants after JBS cyberattack

JBS canceled some shifts at large U.S. and Canadian meat plants on Tuesday after the company was hit by a cyberattack over the weekend, according to unions and company social media posts.

The attack caused JBS’s Australian operations to shut down on Monday. The company, the world’s largest meatpacker, said it was working to resolve the incident.

“On Sunday, May 30, JBS USA determined that it was the target of an organized cybersecurity attack, affecting some of the servers supporting its North American and Australian IT systems,” it said in a statement released Monday.

JBS reported the incident a few weeks after a ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline, the largest fuel pipeline in the United States, crippled fuel delivery for several days in the U.S. Southeast.

The attack also comes at a time of rising global meat prices as China increases imports, food costs rise and plants continue to face labor shortages that started during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A man types into a keyboard during a convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. on July 29, 2017. REUTERS/Steve Marcus/File Photo

Two kill and fabrication shifts had been canceled at JBS’s beef plant in Greeley, Colorado, due to the cyber attack, representatives of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 7 said in an e-mail. JBS Beef in Cactus, Texas, also said on Facebook it would not run on Tuesday — updating an early post that had said the plant would run as normal.

The United States Cattlemen’s Association, an industry group, said on Twitter that it had reports of JBS redirecting livestock haulers who arrived at plants and were to unload animals for processing.

JBS Canada said in a Facebook post that shifts had been canceled at its plant in Brooks, Alberta, on Monday and one shift so far had been canceled on Tuesday.

The Brazilian company, which has its North American operations headquartered in Greeley, did not respond to additional questions about the cyberattack.

A JBS beef plant in Grand Island, Michigan, said only workers in maintenance and shipping were scheduled to work on Tuesday due to the cyberattack.

“We continue to work through the situation and will keep you informed regarding production on Wednesday,” the Facebook post from Grand Island, Michigan, said.

(Reporting by Caroline Stauffer and Tom Polansek; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Nick Zieminski)