A Northward Carolina porc shaper is blaming swine flu for its occurrence into bankruptcy.
Coharie Hog Farms Inc. said this year's eruption of the H1N1 virus, oftentimes titled swine flu, rotated "darker" an already dispirited market for the additional hot meat. The company filed for Chapter 11 protection Friday in Writer, N.C.
"Symmetric tho' this virus is travel by humans and not by hogs or pigs, the irruption caused a cutting decrement in meat sales," the company said in hotel writing.
Slumping claim for porc in 2009 came after provender prices "skyrocketed" in 2008. The combination has caused Coharie to recede $13.3 million ultimate gathering and $17 cardinal so far this twelvemonth.
Quondam U.S. Sen. Lauch Faircloth founded the friendship in 1972. His girl, Anne B. Faircloth, is now the eld businessman. She spent "millions" in past months to support the troupe, according to the Town Mortal, but Coharie finally filed for bankruptcy in sect to liquate its livestock and separate assets.
The 170-person organisation owns 30,000 sows and produces author than 140 meg pounds of pork apiece period. Coharie, supported in Clinton, N.C., is the largest nonparasitic porc bourgeois to Smithfield Foods Co.
The complement owes many than $50 million to lenders, including Promontory Awe Farm Credit and BB&T Depository. It owes unsafe creditors between $8 1000000 and $10 cardinal. The consort listed assets of between $10 cardinal and $50 cardinal in its insolvency orison.