meatpacking

Tyson Foods said its ground beef and value-added marinated protein plant would be shuttered in February 2025 to help the company operate more efficiently.

Over the last two years, several large pork packers have closed plants in California, Minnesota and most recently Iowa. For some pork producers, this means additional miles and more money to deliver hogs on top of tough economic times.

Packers Sanitation Services, based in Wisconsin, paid $1.5 million to the U.S. Department of Labor after an investigation found it employed children in dangerous jobs, including at the Cargill beef plant in Dodge City, Kansas.

The U.S. Department of Labor said a company hired to clean meatpacking plants may have used children to work potentially dangerous jobs at facilities in Nebraska and Missouri.

Along with $1 billion in American Rescue Plan money to help small processors expand, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is revising regulations intended to protect against monopoly behavior. And it's setting up an online portal to field complaints.

Tyson Foods plans to spend $1.3 billion over the next three years to automate parts of its processing, largely chicken deboning lines. That'll eliminate a little over 3,000 roles.

Ranchers in Nebraska are rebelling against the “Big Four” meat companies by planning their own beef processing plant. They’re seeking a transformation for themselves, the industry and western Nebraska.

Four decades after Garden City’s meatpacking boom began, the southwest Kansas town is still strained by growing pains. And its prosperity remains uneven.

Four decades ago, a town in Kansas and a town in Colorado competed to become home to a giant meatpacking plant that, at the time, was the largest of its kind in the world. Here’s what has happened to them since.