FAT Research
FAT research: briefings, verification notes, and original research from Farm Animal Transparency (FAT). These papers help consumers, producers, and policymakers understand meat, poultry and seafood labeling, origin claims, and self-certification practices.
How FAT research is organized
Papers are grouped by topic below. New to FAT research? Start with What Meat Labels Tell You, and What They Don't, explore the supply chain maps for beef, pork, broiler chicken and catfish, or read the newest posts on the FAT research blog. Every paper cites public sources such as USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and EPA ECHO.
FAT RESEARCH LIBRARY
FAT Research
Plain-English research on meat label disclosure, verification, origin, and consumer transparency.
Animal Welfare Research Series
- ASPCA ShopKind Companion Dataset — Online Meat Roster Scored Against the 16 FAT Categories
- Third-Party Animal Welfare Certification Programs
- Humane Handling Enforcement at U.S. Slaughter Establishments
- Animal Welfare Certifiers in the U.S. Meat Supply
- Animal Welfare in U.S. Meat Production
Beef Packers Research Series
- Captive in Practice: Why “Independent” Is the Wrong Word for Most U.S. Cattle Feedlots
- Federal and State Regulation of Large Feedlots in the United States
- Feedlot Pricing Grids
- Overview of the American Beef Industry: Concentration, Foreign Ownership, and Market Structure
Broiler Chicken Industry Research Series
- Antimicrobial Washes in U.S. Broiler Processing: Chemistry, Evidence and Disclosure
- Chicken Age at Slaughter: What Labels Say and Federal Rules Require
- Chicken Production Overview: U.S. Broiler Production and the Rules That Apply
- Overview of the American Broiler Chicken Industry
Country of Origin Research Series
- The Border Check: What USDA Actually Inspects on 6.5 Billion Pounds of Imported Meat
- Purchased Silence: Who Imports America’s Ground Beef, and Who Hides It
- Lean Beef in America: The Blended, Unlabeled Supply Chain Behind American Ground Beef
- Product of USA: Regulatory Meaning, Trade History, and What the 2026 Rule Changed
- From Retail Demand to Producer Incentives: Can Origin Labels Bridge the Gap?
- The Case for Mandatory COOL: What Supporters Cite and How Strong It Is
Economic Concentration Research Series
- Captive in Practice: Why “Independent” Is the Wrong Word for Most U.S. Cattle Feedlots
- Economic Concentration in Animal Protein: DOJ Enforcement, FTC Policy, and Federal Case Law (2000–2026)
- How Economic Concentration Shows Up on Meat Labels
- Economic Concentration in U.S. Broiler Chicken Supply Chains
- Economic Concentration in U.S. Pork Supply Chains
- Economic Concentration in U.S. Beef Supply Chains
Environmental Impact & Risk
- Environmental Watch — Week of November 2, 2026
- What State Records Show About Hog-Farm Enforcement That EPA’s Database Doesn’t
- Environmental Watch — Week of October 26, 2026
- Environmental Watch — Week of October 19, 2026
- Environmental Watch — Week of October 12, 2026
- The Hog Farms EPA’s Database Doesn’t Show
Food as Medicine Research Series
View all →Food Safety Research Series
- Blade Tenderized: The Two Words on a Steak Label That Change How You Should Cook It
- Food Safety, Meat and Seafood Labeling, and the Role of Farm Animal Transparency
Foreign Meat Importation Research Series
- The Border Check: What USDA Actually Inspects on 6.5 Billion Pounds of Imported Meat
- Purchased Silence: Who Imports America’s Ground Beef, and Who Hides It
FSIS ENFORCEMENT DATA SERIES
View all →Grass-fed Beef Research Series
- The Border Check: What USDA Actually Inspects on 6.5 Billion Pounds of Imported Meat
- Purchased Silence: Who Imports America’s Ground Beef, and Who Hides It
- The Grass-Fed Retail Price Tracker: What Grass-Fed Beef Actually Costs at the Grocery Store
- Harvest Age, Grind Specification, and Named-Primal Grinds: Three Things Ground-Beef Labels Don’t Tell You
- Grass-Fed vs. Grass-Finished: What FSIS Actually Recognizes, and What Consumers Don’t Know
- Grass-Fed Beef: The Age and Tenderness Problem Nobody Talks About
Hamburger Research Series
- Is My Ground Beef Lab-Grown? How to Check in 10 Seconds
- Purchased Silence: Who Imports America’s Ground Beef, and Who Hides It
- Harvest Age, Grind Specification, and Named-Primal Grinds: Three Things Ground-Beef Labels Don’t Tell You
- Lean Beef in America: The Blended, Unlabeled Supply Chain Behind American Ground Beef
- Lean Beef Imports for Hamburger Sold in America
- What “American” Means on a Ground Beef Label
Hormones & Antibiotics
- The 2024 Antibiotic Surge in U.S. Livestock Production
- Is Grass-Fed Beef Better For You ?
- Verification of Vaccination
- What is a “Reputation Cattle Herd” in the Beef Cattle Industry
Pork Industry Research Series
- What State Records Show About Hog-Farm Enforcement That EPA’s Database Doesn’t
- The Hog Farms EPA’s Database Doesn’t Show
- North Carolina’s Hog CAFOs in 2026: A Regulatory Record That Closed, and a Label That Never Opened
- Ractopamine in U.S. Pork: What Federal Approval Allows, What Labels Disclose, and Who Verifies “Never Fed”
- Pork Processing in the United States
- Overview of the American Pork Industry
Producer & Rancher Practices
- Animal Welfare Certifiers in the U.S. Meat Supply
- What is a “Reputation Cattle Herd” in the Beef Cattle Industry
Producer Directory Research Series
- What “Animal Welfare Approved” Actually Verifies: Findings from a 21-Producer Audit
- Reading the Directory: How Stream B Differs from a Label Audit
Retail Labels & Grocers
- The Grass-Fed Retail Price Tracker: What Grass-Fed Beef Actually Costs at the Grocery Store
- The Retail Exemption
- Consumer Behavior and Food Labels: An Integrative Review of the Academic and Scientific Literature with Particular Emphasis on Meat and Seafood
- EST Number Placement — The Meat Label Disclosure Gap
- “Natural” and “Family Farm”: Two Label Claims, No Real Definitions
- USDA Label Claims and Process Verification
Seafood Research Series
- What the FDA Cannot See: Bycatch, Seafood Imports, and the Gap Between Food-Safety Enforcement and Fishing Rules
- Off the Menu? Evaluating the Chefs’ Campaign Against Ocean-Farmed Salmon
- Service-Case Seafood Capture Schema: Fields, Normalization & Confidence Semantics
- Searching Seafood by Metro Area: A Public Relevance Layer for the FAT App
- Brand Search in Practice: A Seven-Distributor Pilot of the Seafood Label Model
- Scanning the Seafood Label: A Confidence-Graded Brand-Search Model
Traceability & 840 Tags
- From Retail Demand to Producer Incentives: Can Origin Labels Bridge the Gap?
- The Case for Mandatory COOL: What Supporters Cite and How Strong It Is
- The Case Against Mandatory COOL: What the Economic Studies Found
- Policy and Market Pressures on Transparent Domestic Beef
- From Compliance to Brand: How Verified U.S. Beef Can Earn Consumer Trust
- Product of USA After FSIS Revisions: What Changed, What It Costs, and Who Bears the Burden
USDA Labeling Rules
- Blade Tenderized: The Two Words on a Steak Label That Change How You Should Cook It
- Is My Ground Beef Lab-Grown? How to Check in 10 Seconds
- The Retail Exemption
- Consumer Behavior and Food Labels: An Integrative Review of the Academic and Scientific Literature with Particular Emphasis on Meat and Seafood
- EST Number Placement — The Meat Label Disclosure Gap
- “Natural” and “Family Farm”: Two Label Claims, No Real Definitions
Verified & Voluntary Claims
View all →Last reviewed: November 2026