Meat Products Manufacturers NAICS 3116

Jun 23, 2025 - Aging Infrastructure

• Aging food processing infrastructure – some dating back more than half a century – poses risks for food manufacturers, especially producers of perishable products that must move swiftly through the system to preserve freshness and quality, Food Processing (FP) reports. Older equipment is more likely to break down, interrupting production and potentially leading to product loss and unexpected replacement costs. Moreover, prolonged downtime or product loss due to breakdowns can ripple through the supply chain. An incident at a poultry plant affected feed suppliers, transportation networks, as well as downstream distributors and retailers, FP gave as an example. The Boar’s Head deli meat plant in Jarrett, Virginia that was the source of a listeria outbreak that killed nine people, sickened dozens, and caused significant reputational damage to the company was 44 years old when it was shut down in 2024.
• Meat and poultry processors are feeling the impact of the freezing of federal grants by the Trump administration, according to the American Association of Meat Processors (AAMP). Companies that were awarded grants in 2023-24 but not yet received the funds are finding themselves in the middle of expansions and equipment purchases without a way to move forward. The AAMP cites the case of New Hampshire’s Granite State Packing, which was awarded $1.6 million from the USDA under the Local MCAP (Local Meat Capacity) Grant to support independently-owned meat and poultry processing businesses. According to the company, it started construction and ordered more than $600,000 worth of new equipment before learning that grant funds were on hold until further notice. Granite State Packing isn’t alone. Many small and independent producers and farmers have had USDA funding they were counting on frozen by the Trump administration.

• Pressure on the beef industry is driving mass layoffs among meat processors, with Cargill, one of North America’s largest meat processors, laying off thousands of workers, The Wall Street Journal reports. US cattle ranchers have been shrinking herds because of drought and high supply chain costs, reducing the livestock supply and raising prices for beef processors. Adverse conditions have reduced the number of cattle in the US to its lowest level in nearly a decade, with domestic beef production on track to drop by more than 2 billion pounds in 2024, the biggest annual decline since 1979, according to the USDA. Cargill has laid off workers at a Nashville beef plant, sold a California beef processing facility and offloaded a dry sausage plant to competitor Smithfield. Tyson Foods will permanently close a plant in Kansas that made seasoned and marinated proteins and ground beef, in February 2025.
• Producer prices for animal slaughtering and processing firms rose 5.5% in May compared to a year ago after rising 3.2% in the previous annual comparison, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Industry producer prices hit a record high in May, topping their previous peak in mid-2022. Retail prices for meats rose 4% year over year for the month but prices for hot dogs and lunchmeats declined by 5.3% and 1.4%, respectively, over the same period, per the Consumer Price Index. In April, employment by meat products manufacturers grew 2.1% YoY, while average industry wages rose 1.6% over the same period to $22.23 per hour, BLS data show.