KWQC: maintenance worker killed at Smithfield Foods factory in Monmouth, Illinois; cause of death yet unknown, but reported to have been machinery related

Yeaaah see that picture here?  That’s the kind of stuff that Smithfield Foods produces, basically a whole bunch of manufactured meat products.  The kind of things you see in the pre-packaged lunch meat aisle, and if you’re anything like me, are pretty indiscriminate about the brand, and liable to pick up whatever’s cheapest and doesn’t look too sketch.

The fact that it’s been a few days since this was reported, and no specificity on how the worker was unfortunately killed invariably leads to the jumping to the conclusion that man may have fallen into some vat or food processing machine, and that he could possibly end up as byproduct to any one, or multiple of the types of meats shown above.

And no, I’m not above making a tasteless joke in light of another human’s demise, but in this case, I am not joking.  Seldom is there much humor in the loss of another’s life, and it really sucks for the person who died at work, as well as the family that lost them, but the lack of specific details in the matter does genuinely raise concern about the contents of the food that the factory could be producing in coming days and weeks, and it’s going to take some very clear explaining to ensure future consumers that they might not be getting partial flecks of human matter in their kielbasas and bacon in the future.

Also really sucks for the plant workers who weren’t just immediately sent home for the day in light of a fatality at the workplace, and that the facility intended on operating as if nothing had happened.  I unfortunately have experienced a situation where a vendor had a fatal accident at work, and they ceased operations immediately, because that seems like the logical thing to do in order to investigate the matter in as calm as a place you can, as well as give some grieving space to all that were unfortunate to witness the incident.

Think Smithfield Foods better consider putting themselves on the bench, or get ready for a rebranding, because employee fatalities and piss-poor handling of a bad situation is some really bad PR to be farming up in this day and age, and it doesn’t matter how good or not good their product is, they’re in a very crowded food space, and the removal of their existence on account of bad situational management isn’t going to really matter that much.