Meat packing industry

The meat packing industry is an industry that handles the slaughtering, processing and distribution of animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock.

The industry is primarily focused on animals for human consumption with Industrial rendering as a secondary process, but many animals, or their parts, end up used for other purposes. In the US and some other countries the place where the meat packing is done is called a meat packing plant, in New Zealand, where most of the produce is exported, it is called a freezing works. An abattoir is also a place where animals are slaughtered for food.

The meat packing industry held a prominent focus in the 1906 novel The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, which criticized the treatment of workers and the safety of the products themselves.