Did nearly 100 food processing plants mysteriously explode in 2022? Did 10,000 cattle in Kansas die mysteriously too? No, neither of those claims are true: Lead Stories determined the food processing explosions claim was false -- because there were no explosions. There were some fires, as a previous Lead Stories fact check found, but they were not caused by arson. At least 2,000, not 10,000, cattle in Kansas died from a heat wave, and not mysteriously.
The claim appeared in an Instagram post on June 16, 2022. It reads:
10,000 cattle died 'mysteriously' in Kansas as of yesterday
Nearly a hundred food processing plants 'mysteriously' exploded so far in 2022
It's not a mystery, it's intentional
This is what the Instagram post looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Fri Jun 17 15:59:34 2022 UTC)
In an April 26, 2022, fact check, Lead Stories did not find that there were any large explosions or fires at food processing plants in 2022 at that time. Some of the fires that the post claimed started because of the Ukraine-Russia war actually occurred before the war. There were also a number of incidents that were misleading, such as a plane crash on a parking lot.
In a June 8, 2022, fact check, Lead Stories established that there was no evidence that a fire at an egg farm in Minnesota was intentional. The Minnesota state fire marshall finished their investigation of the event without establishing a cause. The claim also says this egg farm was one of the largest in the country. While the farm does produce a lot of eggs, there are many farms that produce much more.
The claim that 10,000 cattle died mysteriously is also false, as Lead Stories reported on June 17, 2022. A spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Agriculture sent us a June 17, 2022, email with a press release saying that Gov. Laura Kelly was going to support the cattle feeders whose cattle had died. While heat-related deaths of cattle are rare, Kansas Secretary of Agriculture Mike Beam said the losses would not impact meat prices.
