FAT Research
Briefings, verification notes, and original research from Farm Animal Transparency. These summaries help consumers, producers, and policymakers understand meat labeling, origin claims, and self-certification practices.
FAT RESEARCH LIBRARY
FAT Research
Plain-English research on meat label disclosure, verification, origin, and consumer transparency.
Animal Welfare Research Series
- Third-Party Animal Welfare Certification Programs
- Humane Handling Enforcement at U.S. Slaughter
- 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
- The Chemistry That Isn’t on the Label: Antimicrobial Washes in U.S. Broiler Processing
- Chicken Age at Slaughter: What the Label Says, What Federal Regulations Require, and What the Industry Actually Does
- Chicken Production Overview
- 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 Structural Labeling Implications
- Farm Animal Transparency: From Retail Demand to Producer Incentives – Can Origin Labels Bridge the Gap?
- Evidence Supporting Reinstatement of COOL for U.S. Beef, Pork, and Chicken
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 September 21, 2026
- Environmental Watch — Week of September 14, 2026
- Environmental Watch — Week of September 7, 2026
- Environmental Watch — Week of August 24, 2026
- Environmental Watch — Week of August 17, 2026
- Environmental Watch — Week of August 3, 2026
Food as Medicine Research Series
View all →Food Safety Research Series
View all →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
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
- 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
- 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
- How the FDA Enforces Seafood Law
- Catfish Production Overview
Traceability & 840 Tags
- Farm Animal Transparency: From Retail Demand to Producer Incentives – Can Origin Labels Bridge the Gap?
- Evidence Supporting Reinstatement of COOL for U.S. Beef, Pork, and Chicken
- Evidence That Does Not Support COOL
- Policy & Market Pressures on Transparent Domestic Beef
- From Compliance to Brand: How Retailers Are Turning Verified U.S. Beef Into Consumer Trust
- Product of USA After FSIS Revisions: What Changed, What It Costs, and Who Bears the Burden
USDA Labeling Rules
- 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
- What Meat Labels Tell You — And What They Don’t
- Animal Welfare Certifiers in the U.S. Meat Supply
Verified & Voluntary Claims
View all →Last reviewed: May 2026