Mar 2, 2009 8:41 AM

Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation says it will idle three of its 32 U.S. chicken processing plants by mid-May as part of its reorganization.

The idling of these three underperforming plants is intended to improve the company’s product mix by reducing commodity production and costs in the midst of an industrywide oversupply of chicken and weak consumer demand resulting from a national recession. The plants are in Douglas GA, El Dorado AR, and Farmerville LA.

The company says there will not be any disruption in the supply of product to foodservice, industrial, and retail customers as a result of the idling of these plants. The move will only eliminate production of excess commodity chicken.

The plants will be kept idle until additional production capacity is needed.