A lot of political fault lines have shifted in 2025. This is true also for animal agriculture — and the activist organizations that work in opposition to it. The last 12 months has introduced a number of new strategies to discourage meat production and processing. Some have been more successful than others, but the campaigns will continue apace in 2026. Hannah Thompson-Weeman is president and CEO of the Animal Agriculture Alliance, and as such, she leads the animal protein industry’s ef...

The machines in a meat processing plant are getting ever more sophisticated, efficient and programmable — but hacking them can be as easy as sending an email. Cyber attacks on companies, especially manufacturers, are picking up speed and food companies are a favorite target for bad actors looking to make high-profile trouble or arrange a ransomware payday. Paul Kafer of Anabasis Consulting has been writing and advising on how to manage that electronic portal for hackers for years. In most cas...

Jeff “Trip” Tripician has played in nearly every sandbox in the meat industry: Conventional animal proteins to claims-based brands, the meat industry’s bleeding edge of technology — cultivated meat — to, most recently, a step back in time as CEO of Charcuterie Artisans. In this position, Tripician oversees the storied Daniele and Creminelli brands of salumi and charcuterie. Charcuterie is exploding as a consumer category, spurred on by beautiful images of assembled charcuterie boards on Insta...

Sustainability in the meat supply chain is everybody’s business, and everybody needs to do their part to move the industry forward in this regard. Coordinating the efforts of every link in the domestic poultry chain, from feed to final sale, is the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Poultry & Eggs. This group organizes the discussions — and ultimately the agreements — among more than 100 members, ranging from the Environmental Defense Fund to Cargill to Jollibee. Executive director Ryan Benn...

Regenerative agriculture is more than just a lot of syllables. The term is tossed around more and more often along the food supply chain, but what does that really look like on a day to day basis, for food producers and processors. Diestel Family Ranch in Northern California is an enthusiastic proponent of regenerative agriculture. Heidi Diestel joins us today on MeatingPod to discuss what the company actually does that is regenerative, and how that affects the business, and the quality of th...

It’s the time of year when turkey is, understandably, top of mind, but of course turkey protein has worked its way into our year-round diets, in the form of turkey burgers, deli slices, turkey bacon and the like. So the issues facing the turkey supply chain are front and center for consumers every day often in the form of higher prices. Dr. Lindy Froebel is the still-new senior vice president of science and policy for the National Turkey Federation. She joins MeatingPod today to parse the cha...

Domestic beef prices are certainly a headache, but the U.S. beef supply chain is losing ground in global markets, as well. The culprits are a combination of supply-and-demand economics — and politics. And in the 21st century, other countries, like Brazil, that have nurtured their meat industries over time are stepping up to fill the void in a way they never did before. Today on MeatingPod, we parse out the challenges that are present and the opportunities that are coming for the U.S. beef ind...

Planning ahead properly for major capital investments faces many barriers, from day-to-day challenges that make it hard to focus on long-term horizons to the shiny new technologies rolled out at trade shows that promise labor savings and soaring profitability. Proper long-term planning needs focused attention, air and space, and the right people in the room from the beginning, Judson Armentrout says. The founder and principal consultant with Building Block Solutions has guided many protein pr...

If chicken processors feel like the rope in a game of tug-of-war, they have good reason. Prices are historically high, but that may not last. Trade disputes are a big unknown for poultry exports. And colder weather in the Northern Hemisphere already is ushering in new outbreaks of HPAI across the globe. Nan-Dirk Mulder is a senior global specialist for animal protein with RaboResearch in the Netherlands. He also is the author of its quarterly outlook for the poultry industry. Nan-Dirk doesn’t...

As storied as the history of the meat business is in the United States, the “old ways” are falling by the wayside now. They are being replaced by technology and training. Meanwhile, the meat industry’s workforce also is seeing upheaval. While traditional sources of labor are coming under fire, processors also are having trouble finding a new breed of employee, who can manage the electronics that are filling up the space in the once-humble meat plant. In this episode of MeatingPod, the editors...

The economics of the turkey market are changing. HPAI and other diseases have tightened supplies but prices are down. And decades-long annual sales cycles seem to have been permanently altered by the pandemic’s effects on social gatherings — but ground product isn’t picking up the slack. As the holiday season, and holiday meals, draw closer on the calendar, Mark Jordan of LEAP Analytics joins MeatingPod to help make sense of this fast-changing market, with an eye on what to expect in 20...

It seems a time comes when a meatcutter or rancher wants to take their passion for feeding their communities to a new level, and start up a processing plant. Most of them will need the advice and guidance of someone like David Zarling. The food manufacturing and operations consultant, and program manager for the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network of Oregon State University Extension, has for years led enthusiastic but financially naive meat pros to adopt what he calls a “manufacturing mi...

Every pound a broiler chick puts on up to market distribution uses a gallon of water. Multiply that by the nearly 10 billion birds produced in the U.S. each year — predominantly in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states — and that’s a small lake’s worth of H2O. Much of that is the byproduct of processing, and managing that nutrient- and solids-dense water sustainably and economically is a priority for the entire poultry supply chain. Auburn University’s Brendan Higgins has been stu...

Most U.S. companies have stopped talking about their DEI initiatives, corporate social responsibility and sustainability efforts. Nevertheless, sustainability, in particular, remains a vital part of food companies’ relationships with their customers and end consumers. Pursuing greater sustainability and communicating those programs authentically are key steps to fostering consumer trust, and as Nancy Himmelfarb puts it, “trust sells.” She joins MeatingPod for a wide-ranging discussion o...

Processors’ efforts to understand and meet the array of 21st century standards for “sustainability” may feel overwhelming, but Colorado State Animal Science Prof. Kim Stackhouse-Lawson boils it down: The foundation of sustainability is simply efficiency — something the entire supply chain has gotten good at. Stackhouse-Lawson, also the director of Colorado State’s AgNext food and ag sustainability research collaborative, joins MeatingPod to discuss the complexities of advancing sustainability...

Meat snacks and sticks, particularly in the better-for-you market space, are soaring in popularity, but not all brands are benefitting the same way. Archer has reached aggressively across distribution channels with statistics that not only tell the obvious story — “stock us, we’re better” — but also educates retail buyers on exactly how the meat snack category performs for them vis-a-vis competitors and what they can do to boost their sell-through, as Archer’s Vice President of Marketing Andr...

Would your plant — or your company — survive the overnight disappearance of more than half of your operations workforce? Glenn Valley Foods in Omaha did, after an ICE raid in June. In a conversation with Meatingplace Editor-in-chief Tom Johnston, Glenn Valley President Chad Hartmann tells the inside story of the raid and what the company did in the days and weeks that followed that got it back on its feet. And Hartmann issues a warning: Any processor, big or small, could be next.

What goes into the decision to fight — or settle — accusations of price-fixing and collusion? The calculation is different for each company, but the fallout of the antitrust cases filed against meat and poultry processors still rains on the industry, and will do so for years. Meatingplace News Editor Chris Moore joins MeatingPod for the second episode of a deep dive into the raft of antitrust cases filed against processors over the last nine years. In this installment, we tackle the hid...

For nearly a decade, processors of all types of meat have been hauled into court on allegations of price-fixing and other types of collusion. The legalities are complex — and expensive. Most companies are choosing to settle before the case gets to trial. A notable exception is Wayne-Sanderson, which was just Sanderson Farms when a jury handed the company a victory in late 2023. Meatingplace News Editor Chris Moore joins MeatingPod for a two-episode, deep dive into these antitrust cases, and t...

Pork is enjoying a moment in the sun, after a bumpy post-pandemic ride. Affordable feed and expensive beef are fueling demand for the red meat, even as upheaval around tariffs and the offsetting changes in the value of the US dollar work to sow uncertainty in the market. In this MeatingPod episode, Mark Jordan, executive director and senior livestock economist for LEAP Market Analytics, discusses these and many other factors that are steering the U.S. pork market into the second half of 2025.