Joining us. Tonight the pause before the big holiday break this weekend. More than 40 of the country either stopping or reversing their plans to reopen. The Meat Industry also trying to bounce back with farmers some of the hardest hit, now bracing for a possible second wave of covid19. Heres my nightline coanchor, juju chang. Reporter raising pigs is a Family Tradition for randy jay wurtsma. Hog farming is built on flow of lots of numbers, tight margins. Reporter for three generations, this 2500acre farm in rushmore, minnesota has kept food on the table for his own family and thousands of others across the country. Of course were in business to make a profit, make money and make a living, but we an essential cog in feeding the world. Many farms like mine. This is where pork comes from. Without us, there wouldnt be any. Reporter wurtsma is contracted to sell his pigs, 24,000 a year, to one of the biggest pork processing companies, until it was interrupted two months ago. More meat packing plants close. Several major Meat Processing plants are struggling to keep up due to sick workers. Reporter today hes still recovering from the bloe blw of first wave of covid19, shutting down major meat processors, including jbs this spring, yet, hes finding himself bracing again. I am very concerned about a second wave of coronavirus. Were still backed up on pigs from the first shutdown. Reporter with at least 38 states report ago increase in covid cases, wurtsma is among the many worried about the economy coming to another stand still and creating a Lasting Impact on the meat supply chain. Will we ever run out of meat . The answers no. Will we run into shortages . Yeah, it theretheres a good possibility. Reporter the shutdown left him with a farm full of pigs ready for slaughter. You could lose the farm literally. How heavy does that weigh on you. When that plant closed down, when we had no market for our pigs, technically, we had 15,000 pigs in our yard, and they were worth zero. This will be absolutely devastating to many farms. Reporter the decisions to preef prevent overcrowding, euthanizing pigs and put being some on a slower diet to slow their growth. This is the feed system. Our target is normally to make them grow three pounds a day, now were trying to get them to grow one pound a day or liiess. Reporter he lost 200,000 in revenue two weeks. If he does have to kill his large hogs it would be a greater hit. Eliminating it not to food is, its just emotionally and physically and mentally, i mean, its absolutely awful. Reporter it hurts you not just in the pocket book. Its got to hurt you in the gut somewhere. I mean, these pigs are one of gods gifts. These pigs are intended for food. Its literally sinful to take this food and destroy it. Reporter how does culling your herd, culling down those pigs affect the food chain down the line . There will come a point down the road when the packers are trying to kill pigs and there wont be enough pigs there. I firmly believe. Some farms are going to go out of business, its inevitable. Reporter when meat packing plants did reopen many couldnt return to prepandemic capacity in part because of concerns of the virus spreading. These largescale packers know and are not hesitant to admit that the employee is the most important piece to the puzzle. Keeping them safe, taking into account their Mental Health is very important. Reporter over 26,000 covid19 cases have been tied to meat packing plants. With these largescale meat packing plants, we have hundreds and maybe thousands, up to maybe two or three thousand employees that come together to work. When you have large groups of people that come together, it me a hot spot. Se that i w one of the countrys biggest clusters of covid this spring was at smith field Foods Processing plant in sioux falls, southe worker said it wasnt wo the 17 an hour she was making. I was thinking it was not a safe place to work, especially to protect my family. Reporter what made you think it wasnt safe . There is no social distance. We are working all together. We are working in lines. Reporter one feet apart . Two feet apart . No, i can say a few inches. Reporter she quit in april after working at smith field for ten years. They told us in the first meeting that we are essential workers and we need to keep working to provide all the food to the tables. But at the same point, we are humans. We need to healthfully keep working. Reporter as early as february i was told, they began instituting a number of covid19 processes and protocols to protect our employees health and safety, to implement protective measures across our more than 40 u. S. Facilities. The company said there are inescapable realities about our industry, posing challenges to social distancing, including installing plexiglass and adding mass thermal scanning systems. Some major processing plants, including smithfields are now beginning to approach full capacity once again. Meanwhile, the meat supply line has been getting help from the little guy. Or gal, in the case of Johnson Sausage shop in rio, wisconsin. Chris johnson owns this meat market and small processing facility. She typically slaughters 2550 animals a week. Just a fraction of the bigger plants kill capacity. But over the last few months shes been taking on as many animals as they can handle, helping farmers get rid of the backlog. We are their only hope, untik hav tow them a when tir drm ou have no food. Reporter she says farmers have been posting about their surplus on social media. Her customers then step in to purchase an animal right off the farm and bring it to chris. People have never bought a half a hog or quarter beef. Theyve never done this before and realized this is the way they should have been buying meat all along. Reporter because she ses smaller in size, she has fewer workers, a key factor in preventing covid19 outbreaks. Shes completely booked through early next year, now processing 70 to 80 animals a week, almost doubling her prepandemic output. Every additional she takes on benefits farmers aonsumers. Ift have the small plants, the food would be difficult. These guys are by far the bargain, the way to go. Reporter and all the extra work at chriss plants means jobs for people in her community. Its a winwin for everybody. They need money, i need workers. Its financial chain. Somebody is unemployed, just need a little bit of time until they get called back, i will definitely take them on. If theres something to take home with this covid19 is that our local meat processors still have a place at the table and will continue to have a place at the table. However, this is a bandaid. They cant fix the problem. Thats the bottom line. Reporter although the Meat Processing is beginning to pick up again, the glut of product and the recession mean farmers like wurtsma are getting paid less for their animals. Nobody is moving around like they normally do. The cruise ships. Hotel lines and ball games. Nobodys going out to have a hot dog at a ball game. Reporter hes just hoping he can hang on through this period so he can pass the farm on to a fourth generation, his son. Were always hopeful about the future of farming. Farming has always had its challenges throughout the years. As long as theres an outlet for our products, we generally figure out a way to make it go. Our thanks to juju. Up next, a look at the unlikely booming business right now. What made the impossible burger possible. Drop the taco. Get in the car. Does this sentra feel like a compromise to you . Wait, what. . The handling is good, right . No compromise there. Nope watch this. Umm. Bbrie. Brie brie rear automatic braking. So if this Nissan Sentra isnt gonna compromise, why should you . Youre right atta girl. The allnew Nissan Sentra. With more standard safety features than any other car in its class. With more standard do i use a toothpaste that or one thats good for my teeth . Now i dont have to choose. Crest 3d white. It removes up to 95 of surface stains. And strengthens enamel. From the number one toothpaste brand in america. Crest. cat 2 flook at that cat 1 its made with real farmraised chicken cat 2 i gotta get my paws on that cat 1 its friskies farm favorites cat 2 the winning farmula. woman vo feed their fantasy. Friskies cat 1 look friskies ocean favorites yum frustrated that clean clothes you want to wear always seem to need an iron . 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You now know that in the next earthquake your house will be standing and we also got a discount on our earthquake insurance. If there is an earthquake. Our house has a better chance of surviving in. As the summer heats up, so does a Popular American staple, the burger. People ready for 4th of july festivities this weekend, they may be reaching for a plantbase the alternative. Heres matt gutman with why this vegetarian version is giving the classic a run for its money. Reporter it may look like raw beef. Literally at this point you could scoop your hand in, take a bunch of it and eat it. Reporter but the stainless steel machinery is churning out a popular meat alternative, which you dont even have to cook to eat. I guess its a significant difference when youre dealing with a product like soybeans rather than live animals. Reporter our team was granted exclusive yak ses ines o impossible foods. Plantbased alternative Companies Like impossible foods and beyond meat are seeing a huge surge in demand right now. In part, prompted by nationwide shortages in meat, caused by covid outbreaks in meat plants. Slaughterhouses often employ thousands of workers, elbow to elbow. Soybeans . Thats a lot less messy and certainly a lot safer for workers. Impossible ceo pat brown says employee safety has been one of the companys top priorities. How hasecd production . Production has been kept pretty well. As you saw, we were able to create a very safe environment. Obviously, with this big space and the handful of people, social distancing is not a challenge. Reporter this spring, meat packing plants suffered some of their biggest disruptions in decades due to covid outbreaks, and stores afraid of meat shortages put limits on the number of packages consumers could buy. But sales of Meat Alternatives were up, nearly 250 in just the 12 weeks ending on may 23rd. Were expanding our production. Were selling everything we can produce. Reporter browns vision for t the future of this industry is ambitious. Your goal is to kill the Meat Industry . I would say yes. It falls on our shoulders to create foods that do a better job of serving meatloving consumers than the ones that are made from animals. Reporter you know, when we think of things that are destructive to the environment and planet, we think fossil fuels. Yeah. Reporter airplanes, cars, motorcycles, anything like that. We dont think meat. I think more and more people are now becoming aware of this. I would say pretty much all serious environmentalists realize the number one environmental threat is the use of animals to produce food. Reporter just a few years ago, even the idea that a plantbased alternative could disrupt the Meat Industry seemed impossible. Today brown insists its not only possible, its probable. The key, he says, is taste. And while turning legumes into meat involves some modernday alchemy, the end result . Well, it tastes exactly like a burger, like any other burger. Plantbased meats even r the final frontier of american fast food like burger king. Even dunkin donutskin donutskt dogg lending their star power. But some critics warn that both impossible and beyond burgers are heavily processed. In general, what we understand about the human diet and about the way that humans are evolved, ultra processed food tends to be much less good for you than the whole foods alternatives. Reporter but it may not matter to americans who are increasingly consuming Meat Alternatives, not because theyre vegetarians, but because of the Environmental Impact of meat consumption. If you replace a pound of cowderived beef with a pound of impossible beef, you reduce your Greenhouse Gas footprint by the equivalent of the daily average commute in the u. S. Were all becoming much more aware as a society. But our lifestyle is unsustainable. Many of the movements of young people who are interested in this are saying, yes, we need to address sustainability but we need to address labor rights, immigration. And the problems involved in the food system are very, very big. Reporter but plantbased alternatives are on average more expensive than regular ground beef. They average 8. 99, 11. 99 a pound, searas much as a rib eye. And with unemployment for many americans, the added cost could be a deal breaker. Is there a way to reduce the price . Yes, absolutely a way to reduce the price. The one thing they have that we dont have is theyre a mature industry. When we get to scale, our economics are structurally better than the incumbent industry, and well be able to compete on price. Reporter but, when brown surveys the future of his company, he see it is interconnected with the future of the planet. Our mission is to completely replace animals as a Food Technology by 2035. The rate of Climate Change and possibly worse, the collapse of biodiversity, which is almost entirely due to the use of animals in the food system, if we dont stop and reverse those things very soon were going to be passing on a dismal world to future generations. Reporter pofor nightline, matt gutman in oakland, california. Our thanks to matt. And next, the best kind of pickmeup. Thank you, greg, thank you when you have nausea, upset stomach, diarrheaon, pepto bismol coats and soothes your stomach for fast relief and now, get the same fast relief in a delightful chew with new pepto bismol chews. Oh. Oh, darn wha let me help. Lift and push and push there. Its up there. Hey joshie. Wrinkles send the wrong message. Help prevent them before they start with downy wrinkleguard. Every year, you can see spectacular celebrities at aids walk San Francisco. This year they are coming to you join bette midler Gloria Estefan matt bomer stars of queer eye rupauls drag race superstars. For aids walk San Francisco live at home, streaming on july 19 to benefit prc and their covid relief efforts all over the city. Register now at aidswalk. Net and their covid relief efforts all over the city. When we closed our wynn committed instantly to keeping all 15,000 team members onboard. We then focused our fivestar level of service to all who needed it. We made improvements to peoples lives. We strove to be better and we made people happy. This closure may have temporarily taken us out of wynn and encore, but it couldnt take the wynn and encore out of us. And now, we are proud to welcome you back. And finally tonight, delivering thanks. Ups drive Gregory Watkins knows his route by heart. On the job in smithtown, new york, for 13 year. And since the pandemic started, the father of four going the extra mile and working longer hours. It did not go unnoticed. Whoo thank you, greg, thank you his customers secretly coordinating a surprise. I looked, and i was just like, oh, my goodness, is this for me . A special delivery for the delivery man. And my smithtown family, i love you guys. It was American Writer richard bach who said the bond that links your true family is not one of blood but of respect and joy in others life. Thats might line for this evening. You can see us right back here tomorrow night, same time. Thanks for the company, america, goodnight. Jimmy hell loerks io, im j. This is the eighth night of angry protests around this country and around the world, including here in los angeles where people are fed up with the inequities and abuse. Our president , if we can still even call him that seems to believe he is the warden over a prison break. He tweeted overwhelming force, domination, likewise, thank president. thank you President Trump . He wrote this. Forget president s, has any other person ever thanked himself in a tweet . Other than trump, i dont think anyone has. Like, could you imagine joe montana writing San Francisco. Four super bowl rings. Thank you joe montana no. You cant. Because its unimaginable. He is unimaginable. And while the president is giving himself another reacharound, we had another curfew tonight here in los angeles. Theres a curfew in new york. Looters, who should never be confused with protestors because they are different groups, have unfortunately provided the fox newsers with an excuse to lump people together. Which is what they do best. I dont know about you, but i