Written by: Saïda Aït, VP Global Marketing, Trace One
U.S. food manufacturing reached a record 1.77 million workers in 2025, yet the industry now accounts for a smaller share of the nation’s workforce than it did decades ago. Despite this long-term decline in employment concentration, food manufacturing remains one of America’s largest manufacturing sectors, supplying the grocery staples that households rely on every day. Every loaf of bread, carton of milk, package of frozen vegetables, and box of cereal passes through a manufacturing facility where raw agricultural commodities are transformed into finished products. In addition to stocking supermarket shelves, the industry adds value to American agriculture, supports extensive transportation, packaging, warehousing, and equipment supply networks, and provides stable employment in communities across the country.
To better understand where America’s grocery staples are made, Trace One—a product lifecycle management and regulatory compliance software provider serving food and beverage, retail, cosmetics, and chemicals manufacturers—analyzed employment and establishment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), which covers more than 95% of U.S. wage and salary employment. The analysis examines long-term employment trends in food manufacturing, compares employment across major food manufacturing industries, and identifies the metropolitan areas where food manufacturing workers are most concentrated, offering a snapshot of the regions that help keep America’s grocery shelves stocked.
Key Findings
- Food manufacturing employment reached a record high in 2025 despite becoming a smaller share of the U.S. workforce. The industry employed 1,774,702 workers in 2025, up 11% from 1,600,921 in 2020, while its employment concentration declined from 14.0 workers per 1,000 U.S. employees in 1990 to just 11.4 in 2025.
- Animal slaughtering and processing is the nation’s largest food manufacturing employer, while bakeries have the most facilities. Animal slaughtering and processing employed 556,070 workers across 4,698 establishments, compared with 346,864 workers across 16,081 bakery and tortilla manufacturing establishments.
- The American Heartland remains the center of food manufacturing. Nebraska led the nation with 41.0 food manufacturing workers per 1,000 total employees, followed by Arkansas (39.7), Iowa (38.6), and Wisconsin (27.9).
- Food manufacturing is especially important to the economies of many smaller metropolitan areas. Dodge City, Kansas, ranked first with 170.3 food manufacturing workers per 1,000 total employees, ahead of Fort Morgan, Colorado (119.6), Hereford, Texas (114.0), and Le Mars, Iowa (111.3).
