Pilgrim’s Pride Parent Company Severs Ties With Embattled Packers Sanitation Services Inc.

(KNSI) — The parent company of Pilgrim’s Pride in Cold Spring has cut ties with an embattled sanitation company.

A letter from Packers Sanitation Services, Inc. to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development says there will be 81 workers who will lose their jobs after JBS Foods notified PSSI it had found another sanitation company to clean its equipment. A company spokesperson confirmed to the Star Tribune that a cleaning contract at Pilgrim’s Pride in Cold Spring would end by June, calling the announcement “disappointing news for the local team and for PSSI.”

In 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division received credible information alleging PSSI assigned minors to work in hazardous occupations. Investigators executed search warrants at the company’s operations at JBS USA plants in Worthington and Grand Island, Nebraska, Turkey Valley Farms in Marshall and its corporate office in Kieler, Wisconsin. Children as young as 13 allegedly worked for PSSI to clean industrial equipment. One suffered caustic chemical burns and other injuries on a kill floor at the JBS USA plant in Nebraska. More than 100 children were working for PSSI in meatpacking plants nationwide.

PSSI was hit with $1.5 million in civil penalties in February.

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