SMITHFIELD, Va. – A problem at a data center owned by Smithfield Foods resulted in the suspension of production at several of the company’s plants.

“Smithfield is dealing with a technology issue at our datacenter that has impacted production at a number of our facilities today,” Kathleen Kirkham, spokeswoman for the company, said in a statement. “Our IT teams are vigilantly investigating and repairing the issue. Once the issue has been resolved, we hope to mitigate production losses through running additional shifts wherever possible.”


One facility affected by the problem is a Farmland Foods pork processing plant in Crete, Neb. The plant employs about 2,000 workers.