Employee infection rates spiked, forcing temporary closures and sudden shortages in supermarket meat aisles. After its revenue plummeted in the second quarter, Smithfield and other meat processors started looking around for strategies to make sure the same thing didn’t happen again.
According to data collected by Food & Environment Reporting Network , some 42,567 meatpacking workers have tested positive for Covid-19 and 203 have died. The backbone of EMT’s technology is a “coated honeycomb matrix” that, when hit by ultraviolet light, pulls moisture from the air and forms hydrogen peroxide. Particles are pushed out of the machine, spreading through a room and landing on surfaces. According to EMT, when the particles come into contact with pathogens, a chemical reaction neutralises them.
“Surfaces are responsible for maybe 5% of all transmissions. Likely much lower,” said Dr. Erin Bromage, an associate professor at University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and an infectious disease expert. “This technology would not work fast enough, nor penetrate a droplet traveling through the air in time to inactivate it before hitting a person’s face.”
But for Nick Santhanam, a senior partner at McKinsey & Co, whether companies like EMT keep growing after the Covid-19 pandemic recedes remains an “open question”. EMT installation costs are calculated by cubic feet and bio-load . A machine for a typical food production facility of 5,000 square feet with 12-foot ceilings would cost about US$11,000 . Mount said the company is on track to make US$10mil in sales this year.