MeatingPod

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...

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 f...

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 a...

The annual convention of the American Assn. of Meat Processors tends to be more of a friends-and-family-type gathering than most other meat industry meetings, but the issues tackled over those days are as large as any processor faces. In this episode of MeatingPod, Meatingplace Managing Editor Peter Ricci introduces two interviews he did on-site at the 2025 AAMP convention, diving deep into the challenges faced by the sector’s smal...

Consumers often say they would buy more meat and poultry if they knew it was more sustainable. At the same time, nearly as many shoppers say they don’t know exactly what steps protein companies have taken to improve sustainability.

One of the fastest ways to get a sustainability message to customers and consumers is through the packaging that’s around the product. Research in sustainable packaging is exploding with new technologies,...

It’s mid-2025, and the poultry complex has had a tough first half. But, the next months look brighter, as Dr. Ashley Peterson notes in today’s MeatingPod episode.

The senior vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs for the National Chicken Council tells us how broiler producers can find federal aid to install new technologies to fight HPAI. She also explains how the association will jump into the just-launched national di...

Good old-fashioned meat from livestock is enjoying renewed popularity, a shift in the zeitgeist fueled by consumers’ demand for simpler, more natural, and less- or unprocessed food products. Add to that a social backlash against plant-based meat substitutes, and a renewed connection in people’s minds between meat and masculinity. Meat advocates and companies no doubt are enjoying the break from years of unrelenting criticism.

But do...

After a white-knuckle first half of the year, the meat alternatives sector stares down the rest of calendar 2025 from a position of retail weakness. Sales trends that seemed poised to turn positive again at the end of last year, didn’t materialize, and dour consumer sentiment could easily drown other, more optimistic economic indicators.

Chris DuBois, Circana’s executive vice president and Perimeter Practice Leader, once again bring...

Every three years the shiniest and newest technologies in meat processing are put on display in Frankfurt at the IFFA trade show. Meatingplace has been in attendance for decades, and this year, managing editor Peter Ricci did the honors.

He came back from Germany with fat stacks of notes on what he’d seen. He did us the favor of trimming all those observations down into a few choice technologies he  shares with us on this Editors Ro...

Picking up 5 or 10-pound weights at the gym doesn’t seem like such a heavy lift, but most people only do it for a few minutes at a time. Try lifting those weights for an entire workday, 130 times a minute. The job of rehanging carcasses on shackles after going through the chiller is one of the most difficult stations on the line to keep staffed.

That's why Georgia Tech Research Institute's Konrad Ahlin spent the last sever...

Immigration enforcement is ramping up — again — and regardless of how carefully a company adheres to federal programs like E-Verify, it’s no guarantee that Immigration and Customs Enforcement won’t darken the door. But, companies can take concrete steps to properly prepare for and respond to a visit from ICE, as David L. Barron, a labor and employment law attorney with Cozen O’Connor in Houston, explains in this episode of MeatingP...

Developing new products that attract consumer attention is a goal for all food manufacturing companies, and Land O’Frost, a manufacturer of specialty meats and packaged deli meats is no exception. Julie Lubash, director of research and development and innovation at Lansing, Ill.-based Land O’Frost provides insights on how the family-owned company developed one of its newest innovations: a line of premium chicken breast and ham deli...

Hybrid meat products — those that combine conventional animal protein with vegetables or plant-based proteins — have had difficulty getting consumers on-board. In fact, new research by Food System Innovations (FSI) indicates that prospective customers get turned off by too much information about what’s actually in the burger or chicken nugget or the like. But without that ingredient information, these products fair remarkably well ...

As processors continue to expand efficiencies and improve worker safety, Dr. Brian Kiepper from the University of Georgia takes our MeatingPod listeners on a tour of early automation efforts, notes where technology stands today and outlines the potential for tech advances in the near future. Dr. Kiepper also explains that meat plant automation doesn’t eliminate jobs, but offers an opportunity to redeploy experienced employees to ot...

In this inaugural episode of the MeatingPod Editor’s Roundtable, Meatingplace Co-Editor-in-Chief Tom Johnston and Managing Editor Peter Ricci discuss the state of the poultry processing industry and where the protein may be headed in the near future. Both editors have covered protein processing businesses for years and offer their insights regarding poultry demand fluctuations. Tom and Peter also describe how the industry is covere...

The challenge of implementing and maintaining food safety standards at any food manufacturing plant requires strict record-keeping, solid communications and a commitment to working with inspectors on both the federal and state levels. In this episode, Brian Kellerman, chief quality and food safety officer at Kellerman Consulting, describes implementation of technically complex food safety projects and describes how food safety effo...

The way Jeff “Trip” Tripician sees it, he didn’t leave his job as CEO of a conventional meat company to become CEO of the Dutch cultivated meat company Meatable; rather, he went from CEO of one meat company to another. After decades working to institute progressive practices within the U.S. meat industry, Trip is pushing the cultivated meat industry to progress by, essentially, helping them understand that they are meat companies, ...

In this episode, Stephanie Major, a senior at Iowa State University, outlines a research project that aimed to better understand how bacon becomes discolored under varying types of retail lights. With Major as co-leader of the research team, the study involved treating cured bacon with natural antioxidants and then packaging the product in aerobic (overwrap) and anaerobic (vacuum packed) containers. Major and Dr. Terry Hauser, asso...

In this episode, Kromm will outline the specifics of the original USDA plan to monitor Salmonella contamination levels in processing plants as well as the goals for tracking various serotypes of Salmonella as well as other pathogens among poultry. She also notes that the proposed regulations – which were challenged by the poultry industry and other stakeholders – ultimately could have complicated the processing and supply chain nee...