Packer
While feedlots are incentivized to push for record weights, ranchers are feeling the strain of larger, high-maintenance cows. Experts say matching your herd to your environment is the only way to win.
With 24-hour care and a 100-child capacity, the new Full Circle Childcare Center aims to solve a critical constraint for families in Kansas’ premier beef processing region.
Following the three-week strike at the JBS Greeley, Colo., plant, union workers have ratified a two-year bargaining agreement.
The three-week strike at the JBS Greeley, Colo., plant is set to end Monday as union workers remain united to secure a fair contract.
Senators Grassley and Smith introduce bipartisan legislation to study the economic impact of concentration in the livestock industry.
While mature cow weights have climbed for 60 years, Oklahoma State analysis explains the link between cow size and carcass weight is more modest than the industry assumes.
Thousands of union workers at the JBS Greeley, Colo., plant went on strike Monday calling for higher wages, safer working conditions and respect on the job.
In today’s beef industry, every ounce of meat matters. On the fabrication floor at Cargill’s Fort Morgan facility, getting one more ounce of meat off the bone can equate to roughly 600,000 quarter-pound servings.
Democrats plans to introduce a bill that would split meat processing operations and scrutinize foreign ownership.
With 100% of processing plants reporting foreign material challenges, the beef industry is turning to live-animal detection to prevent $476 million annually in potential losses.
Project includes state-of-the-art fabrication floor and an expanded ground beef room.
Beef has built a rapidly widening price gap over competing meats in the grocery store. This trend has become increasingly pronounced since the early 2000s, but as beef supplies have tightened over the past three years, the pace of the widening price disparity has accelerated.
2026 will be a year of beef demand shifting not disappearing.
CattleFax’s Patrick Linnell predicts a slow, cautious rebuild as aging producers, labor shortages and volatility reshape expansion decisions.
In 2026, imports decide how painful the grind gets, exports decide whether the carcass pencils, and policy decides how fast everything can change.
Closure will affect 221 employees, with layoffs starting April 11 and the grind facility closing around May 31.
As carcass weights hit new highs, experts warn that efficiency gains bring unintended welfare risks in transport, feedlots and packing plants — and call for targeted investments, better infrastructure and data‑driven management of every animal.
2026 is not the year the cattle cycle “fixes itself.” It is the year the industry learns how to ration a smaller supply base without blowing itself up.
Protein is back on top. Ground beef might be the quiet winner, with imports doing the heavy lifting.
National Agricultural Law Center summarizes key issues from 2025.
UNL predicts closure will result in $3.28 billion in annual statewide economic losses. The analysis projects more than 7,000 jobs lost statewide, including 3,212 plant positions, along with significant reductions in labor income and state and local tax revenues.
Imagine the media, special interest groups and politicians get their way.
Today’s concentration is real, but it’s not the same beast as early 1900s concentration because the governance environment is radically different: stronger safety laws, stronger enforcement, more transparency, more consequences.
Terrain’s Dave Weaber says placements of cattle into feedlots will continue to shrink, long-feared beef slaughter capacity reductions have arrived, and the beef cow herd hasn’t begun to expand.
Swift Beef Co. plans to close its case-ready facility in Riverside, Calif., effective Feb. 2.
The “Big 4" packers are on trial to determine if they suppress cattle bids in a thin cash market, underpay farmers and ranchers, and control what consumers pay for beef.