Industry News - PM

New book on modern meat industry seen as a “hit piece”


By Meatingplace Editors on 2/19/2014

The National Chicken Council and American Meat Institute have come out swinging in their defense of the meat industry in response to a new book that takes a critical look at modern production practices.

In “The Meat Racket,” author Christopher Leonard chronicles how “a handful of companies have seized the nation’s meat supply,” according to a synopsis by publisher Simon & Schuster.  

“We know that it takes big companies to bring meat to the American table. What The Meat Racket shows is that this industrial system is rigged against all of us,” the synopsis reads.

NCC, in a statement, said Leonard tells a one-sided story that fails to educate consumers on progress made by American farmers and companies in producing safe and affordable food.

The book “offers no solutions, no constructive criticism. It is just another hit piece,” said NCC President Mike Brown.

The American Meat Institute, noting Leonard’s focus on four companies that slaughter a large percentage of U.S. livestock and poultry, said criticisms of the industry should be examined against the results. 

“His book makes clear his nostalgic vision for the U.S. meat and poultry industry: a vision pining for a return to an earlier part of the 20th century where meat companies secured their livestock at auction barns, buying stations and from farmers they knew. Although wrapped in a ‘good old days’ theme, such a system was less efficient and less precise in delivering products consumers wanted while forcing them to pay a higher potion of their income to obtain meat and poultry products,” AMI said.

Tyson Foods, in a statement emailed to Meatingplace, said it paid more than $15 billion last year to thousands of independent farmers who supply the company.

“We depend on them and want them to succeed. Some of them have been raising livestock and poultry for us for decades, and in some cases, for multiple generations,” Tyson said, while noting no single company is big enough to control the market and prices.


 
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