The meat packing industry is an industry that handles the slaughtering, processing and distribution of animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock.

The industry is primarily focused on producing meat for human consumption, but it also yields a vareity of by-products including hides, feathers, dried blood, and through the process of rendering, fat such as tallow and protein meals such as meat & bone meal.

In the U.S. and some other countries the place where the meat packing is done is called a meat packing plant; in New Zealand, where most of the produce is exported, it is called a freezing works. An abattoir is a place where animals are slaughtered for food.

The United States meat packing industry held a prominent focus in the 1906 novel The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, which criticized the treatment of workers and the safety of the products themselves. A more modern exposé with a view of the current meat packing industry is Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser.

References

• Hinman, Robert B., Harris, Robert B. The Story of Meat. Swift & Company, 1939.

See also

• Philip Danforth Armour
• Gustavus Franklin Swift
• Temple Grandin

Chicago culture

Meat processing