Meat Processing

ICYMI: Read the first part of my series on regional meat processing: “Gut Reaction: Exploitation for Profit Has Always Been the Engine of the U.S. Meat Processing Industry. Is Another Way Even Possible?” In 1963, there was a dance party on the floor of a brand-new slaughterhouse in Canby, Oregon. …

In 1905, journalist and activist Upton Sinclair published a novel titled, The Jungle. While his intention in describing the working conditions of Chicago stockyards and slaughterhouses was to “set forth the breaking of human hearts by a system which exploits the labor of men and women for profit,” the novel’s…

Climate change is making water more scarce in some areas, but water-intensive meat production isn’t slowing down. By Madison, McVan, Investigate Midwest Water is critical to America’s meat habit. Cows, pigs and chickens drink it. Farmers clean barns and cool animals with it. Meatpackers sanitize plants and wash their product with it.

Thousands of acres of cultivated land line the drive on US-71 North. The late summer sun beats down on the corn and soybeans, making the stalks and leaves shimmer with a golden hue. After hours of driving through farmland from my hometown of Iowa City to Storm Lake, Iowa, a…

Texas seems to be synonymous with beef. Indeed, it comes as no surprise that Texas holds the most cattle of all US states (National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, 2019). The culture of cattle goes back well into the 1730s when the Spanish first brought beef into what is now Texas (Richardson…

Ten months after the start of the pandemic, it was a familiar refrain for the Rochelle Foods plant in northern Illinois: An infected worker allegedly told a plant manager in mid-January that he was feeling better, 10 days after his positive test. …

By Pramod Acharya, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials visited Smithfield Foods’ meatpacking plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, earlier this year, they came away with an unsurprising conclusion. Departments in the plant where workers had to crowd together to do their…

By Sky Chadde, Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting, Kyle Bagenstose and Rachel Axon USA TODAY Sky Chadde is the Midwest Center’s Gannett Agricultural Data Fellow. He can be reached at sky.chadde@investigatemidwest.org. This story is embargoed for republication until Sept. 25, 2020. Even as thousands of their employees fell ill with…

By Heather Schlitz, The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting This story is part of a collaborative reporting initiative between the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting and USA TODAY Network and is supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Maria Romero’s phone rang one day in June with the terrifying…