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American Morning
'Minding Your Business'
Aired January 12, 2004 - 07:25 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: That mad cow scare is weighing on some workers in the U.S. beef industry.
Andy Serwer is checking it out, minding your business this morning on a Monday -- good morning.
What gives here?
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you, Bill.
Pink slips going out across the Great Plains and the farm belt having to do, of course, with the mad cow situation. Meat packers facing demand that is diminishing because exports of U.S. beef are at a standstill.
Let's take a look at exactly what's going on here. Cargill, of course, one of the biggest meat packers, out in Minneapolis, laying off 700 workers in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Texas; Swift in Greeley, Colorado and Tyson, of course, in Springdale, Arkansas. And you can only imagine we might see more of that to come.
Also today, reports that ranchers should expect that these lower beef prices are here to stay, 15 percent lower since before mad cow happened. And that's probably good news for consumers, but really not much to cheer about there.
HEMMER: If you look back at the past 12 months, we talked about the industry being so strong because of the Atkins diet.
SERWER: Yes.
HEMMER: Demand being very high. It surprised me a little bit.
What's the candy crunching going on right now?
SERWER: Well, the candy crunching, I guess we should all relate this back to what happened on Friday, the weak jobs report. Some of those layoffs with the meat packers, now we're seeing layoffs in the candy business, of all places, a big merger going on in Chicago with Archibald Candy. They're going to be laying off 3,600 workers probably. They have the Fannie Mae -- no relation to Freddie Mac -- and Fanny Farmer stores. They're going to close the factory in Chicago and those stores across the country, as well. So more bad news for people there.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired January 12, 2004 - 07:25 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: That mad cow scare is weighing on some workers in the U.S. beef industry.
Andy Serwer is checking it out, minding your business this morning on a Monday -- good morning.
What gives here?
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: Good morning to you, Bill.
Pink slips going out across the Great Plains and the farm belt having to do, of course, with the mad cow situation. Meat packers facing demand that is diminishing because exports of U.S. beef are at a standstill.
Let's take a look at exactly what's going on here. Cargill, of course, one of the biggest meat packers, out in Minneapolis, laying off 700 workers in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Texas; Swift in Greeley, Colorado and Tyson, of course, in Springdale, Arkansas. And you can only imagine we might see more of that to come.
Also today, reports that ranchers should expect that these lower beef prices are here to stay, 15 percent lower since before mad cow happened. And that's probably good news for consumers, but really not much to cheer about there.
HEMMER: If you look back at the past 12 months, we talked about the industry being so strong because of the Atkins diet.
SERWER: Yes.
HEMMER: Demand being very high. It surprised me a little bit.
What's the candy crunching going on right now?
SERWER: Well, the candy crunching, I guess we should all relate this back to what happened on Friday, the weak jobs report. Some of those layoffs with the meat packers, now we're seeing layoffs in the candy business, of all places, a big merger going on in Chicago with Archibald Candy. They're going to be laying off 3,600 workers probably. They have the Fannie Mae -- no relation to Freddie Mac -- and Fanny Farmer stores. They're going to close the factory in Chicago and those stores across the country, as well. So more bad news for people there.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
