Meatpacking industry

The meat packing industry handles the , processing, packaging, and distribution of animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock. Poultry is not included. This greater part of the entire meat industry is primarily focused on producing meat for human consumption, but it also yields a variety of by-products including hides, feathers, dried blood, and, through the process of rendering, fat such as tallow and protein meals such as meat & bone meal.

In the U.S. and some other countries, the facility where the meat packing is done is called a Slaughterhouse, packinghouse or a meat packing plant; in New Zealand, where most of the products are exported, it is called a freezing works. An abattoir is a place where animals are slaughtered for food.

The meat packing industry grew with the construction of the railroads and methods of refrigeration for meat preservation. Railroads made possible the transport of stock to central points for processing, and the transport of products.

Before the Civil War, the meat industry was localized, with nearby farmers providing beef and hogs for local butchers to service the local market. Large Army contracts during the war Attracted entrepreneurs with a vision for building much larger markets. The 1865-1873 era provided five factors that nationalized the industry: The rapid growth of cities provided a lucrative new market for fresh meat; the emergence of large-scale ranching, the role of the railroads, refrigeration, and entrepreneurial skills. Cattle ranching on a large-scale move to the Great Plains, from Texas northward; overland cattle drives moved large herds to the railheads in Kansas, where cattle cars brought live animals eastward. Abilene Kansas was the chief railhead, shipping 35,000 cattle a year, mostly to Kansas City, Milwaukee and Chicago. In Milwaukee Philip Armour An ambitious entrepreneur from New York who made his fortune in Army contracts during the war, partnered with Jacob Plankinton to build a highly efficient stockyard that serviced the upper Midwest. Chicago built the famous Union Stockyards in 1865 on 345 swampy acres to the south of downtown. Armour opened the Chicago plant, as did Nelson Morris, another wartime contractor. Cincinnati and Buffalo, both would good water and rail service, also open stockyards. Perhaps most energetic entrepreneur was Gustavus Swift, the Yankee who operated out of Boston and moved to Chicago in 1875, specializing in long distance refrigerated meat shipments to Eastern cities.

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