Dr. Marion Nestle, longtime NYU professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health, with additional faculty roles at UC San Francisco and Cornell, is best known for analyzing the intersections of food, politics, and health, often exposing how government policy, corporate lobbying, and food industry marketing shape what we eat.
Meat industry consolidation: a national security issue?
Let me start with a summary from Food Safety News:
The final four in the [meat] consolidation game are:
- JBS – This Brazil-based food giant is the world’s largest beef processor. It owns facilities that slaughter and pack over 20,000 cattle per day in the U.S.
- Tyson Foods – Known for chicken, Tyson is also the second largest U.S. beef processor. Their five beef plants process thousands of cattle daily.
- Cargill – This agribusiness conglomerate is the third largest U.S. beef packer and also owns one of the nation’s largest feedlot operations, Cargill Cattle Feeders.
- National Beef – Majority owned by Brazilian meatpacker Marfig, National Beef operates three U.S. packing facilities that process thousands of cattle per day.
Those are the four companies that control about 80 percent of the U.S. beef market, and there is no reason to believe that any of them are satisfied with their share. American consumers are paying some of the highest, inflation-adjusted prices for steaks and hamburgers than at any time in history.
The Trump administration says it is taking this on. In a series of announcements on X (formerly Twitter), USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins says:
We must work to address this to protect our ranchers and consumers. @POTUS and this administration are focused on promoting fairness and competition — ensuring our producers have options and a level playing field.
Not only that, she adds:
Half of these meatpacking giants, including the largest meat packer in the world, are either foreign-owned or have significant foreign ownership and control, making them a threat not just to our cattle producers, but a threat to America itself.
Here’s what she says they doing about it:
And what is the USDA Beef Plan? This will enhance disaster relief, increase grazing access, and build demand.
Anti-trust regulation?
Not a chance.
The post Meat industry consolidation: a national security issue? appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle.
Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003 and from which she officially retired in September 2017. She is also Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been awarded honorary degrees from Transylvania University in Kentucky (2012) and from the City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College (2016). In 2023, she was awarded The Edinburgh Medal (for science and society).
