📅 Prepared March 20, 2026 | 🔄 Revised September 24, 2026 ✍️ Dirk Adams with the assistance of AI ⌛ 10 min read 23 sources

PORK INDUSTRY RESEARCH SERIES | RESEARCH PAPER

Pork Processing in the United States

Structure, regulation and the transparency gap: how hogs reach the plant, what federal law covers, and what the package leaves out.

Prepared for publication by Farm Animal Transparency | September 2026

Federal inspectors are present every day a pork plant runs. Nothing on the label says which farm, which company or which system raised the pig.

Photo: 2024:355 – Preparing for the Christmas rush, QV Market by neonluxe, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr.

At a glance

A few large plants do most of the work. Hogs were slaughtered at 786 plants in 2025, but the 15 largest handled 65% of the total (USDA NASS). The four largest packers handled 65% of hog slaughter in 2021 (USDA Packers and Stockyards Division).

Almost no hogs are sold on the open market. In 2021 and 2022, 54% and 53% of hog purchases reported to USDA were formula-priced, and negotiated purchases were just over 1%.

Line speeds are under review. In February 2026 USDA proposed letting plants in the New Swine Slaughter Inspection System set their own line speeds. As of September 24, 2026, FAT had found no final rule.

Labels say little about origin. Mandatory country-of-origin labeling for pork was repealed in 2015. Since January 1, 2026, a voluntary “Product of USA” claim requires a pig born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the United States.

Abstract

This paper examines U.S. pork processing: how the industry is organized, where hogs come from, the federal rules that govern slaughter, and what information reaches the buyer. It finds that federal law does not require disclosure of the farm, production system, ownership or, for most products, the origin of the animal. It is a companion to Farm Animal Transparency’s (FAT’s) Overview of the American Pork Industry.

1. Industrial structure

1.1 Concentration

USDA’s Packers and Stockyards Division reports that the four largest packers handled 64% to 70% of U.S. hog slaughter each year from 2017 through 2021, and 65% in 2021. The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index for hog slaughter was 1,371 in 2021, below the 1,800 level that the 2023 DOJ/FTC Merger Guidelines treat as highly concentrated. The large firms include Smithfield Foods, JBS USA, Tyson Foods and Seaboard Foods (with its Seaboard Triumph Foods joint venture).

1.2 Plant size

Plant size varies widely. Company figures illustrate the scale at the top:

Smithfield reports capacity of about 108,000 hogs per day across its fresh pork plants (Form 10-K, fiscal 2025). Its Tar Heel, North Carolina plant has daily slaughter capacity of 35,000 head and is described as the largest pork processing plant in the world, according to Meat+Poultry (trade press, 2023).
Tyson reports six pork processing plants with combined capacity of 451,000 head per week (Form 10-K, fiscal 2025).
Seaboard says its Guymon, Oklahoma plant processes about 6 million hogs a year.

1.3 Contracts and packer-owned hogs

Most hogs reach the plant through contracts or company ownership rather than open bidding. USDA ERS reports that the share of hogs produced under contract rose from 34% in 1996–97 to 63% in 2017. In a production contract, the integrator owns the pigs and supplies feed, genetics and veterinary care, while the grower supplies barns and labor.

At the packer’s door, formula pricing dominates. USDA reports that 54% of hog purchases in 2021 and 53% in 2022 were formula-priced, and negotiated purchases were “just over 1 percent,” down from more than 3% in 2013. Smithfield reports that about 40% of the hogs processed in its fresh pork plants come from its own operations, drawn from more than 240 company-owned farms and more than 1,300 contract farms. Tyson says most of its hogs come from independent producers under “various procurement relationships.”

2. Where the hogs come from

On June 1, 2026, Iowa held 24.7 million of the nation’s 73.7 million hogs and pigs, about one-third. Minnesota (9.30 million), North Carolina (7.20 million), Illinois (5.25 million) and Indiana (4.3 million) followed (USDA NASS). Large plants sit in or near these clusters.

Distance matters because hogs are live animals. The farther they travel, the higher the transport cost, the greater the stress, and the greater the biosecurity risk. For that reason, most large plants draw on hogs raised in the surrounding region. FAT’s pork supply chain maps show plant locations relative to production.

Eastern North Carolina

Eastern North Carolina shows the integrated model at its most concentrated. Smithfield’s Tar Heel plant anchors a region of contract growers. In 2024 and 2025 Smithfield sold about 150,000 sows and related inventories to Murphy Family Farms and about 28,000 to VisionAg; those companies now supply hogs to Smithfield rather than being part of its own production (Smithfield Form 10-K).

3. Federal regulatory framework

3.1 Inspection

USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) inspects pork slaughter and processing under the Federal Meat Inspection Act and its regulations. The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act (7 U.S.C. 1901 et seq.) requires “humane treatment and handling as well as a quick and effective death of food animals at the slaughter plant,” in the words of USDA’s National Agricultural Library. These laws address food safety, sanitation and treatment at slaughter. They do not govern how hogs are raised, and they do not require disclosure of the farm, the integrator or the plant’s owner.

3.2 New Swine Slaughter Inspection System (NSIS)

FSIS created NSIS as an optional system for market hog plants in a final rule published October 1, 2019 (84 FR 52300). Under NSIS, plant employees sort and remove unfit animals before FSIS inspection and trim carcass defects before post-mortem inspection, freeing inspectors for other verification work. The 2019 rule also removed maximum line speeds for NSIS plants.

A federal court vacated the line-speed provision on March 31, 2021 (UFCW v. USDA). FSIS then allowed six plants to run faster lines, of 1,206 to 1,450 head per hour, under time-limited trials while it studied worker safety, and published that study on January 9, 2025. In February 2025, 17 market hog plants operated under NSIS. On February 19, 2026, FSIS proposed to let NSIS plants “determine their own line speeds based on their ability to maintain process control,” removing the 1,106 head-per-hour limit. Comments closed April 20, 2026. As of September 24, 2026, FAT had not found a final rule.

NSIS changes who does certain sorting work and how fast lines may run. It does not add disclosure of farm practices or origin.

4. Welfare and environmental rules

4.1 Welfare

No federal statute sets housing or care standards for hogs on the farm; federal humane-handling law begins at the slaughter plant. The main binding on-farm standard comes from states. California’s Proposition 12 bars in-state sale of whole pork meat from breeding pigs, or their immediate offspring, kept in ways that prevent them from lying down, standing up, fully extending their limbs or turning around freely, with a minimum of 24 square feet per animal. The Supreme Court upheld it in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross (May 11, 2023). The House-passed farm bill (H.R. 7567, April 30, 2026) would bar such state standards for livestock raised in other states; the Senate Agriculture Committee’s bill, advanced September 16, 2026, does not include that provision.

4.2 Environment

Under the Clean Water Act, a hog farm with 2,500 or more swine weighing 55 pounds or more, or 10,000 or more under 55 pounds, is a Large concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) (40 CFR 122.23). A CAFO “must not discharge unless the discharge is authorized by an NPDES permit”; a CAFO that does not discharge is not required to hold one. As FAT’s feedlot regulation paper found for cattle, these rules govern pollution, not how animals are raised.

5. The transparency gap

5.1 What the label does not say

Retail pork generally does not disclose the farm of origin, the production system, welfare practices or the company that owned the animal. Mandatory country-of-origin labeling for pork and beef was repealed in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, signed December 18, 2015, after a World Trade Organization ruling against it. Since January 1, 2026, FSIS rules require that a voluntary “Product of USA” claim be used only on meat from animals born, raised, slaughtered and processed in the United States (89 FR 19470). The claim is optional, so its absence tells the buyer nothing.

5.2 Why the gap persists

Integration. When one company controls the pigs from birth to plant, supply-chain information stays inside the company.
Regulatory focus. FSIS rules address food safety, not disclosure.
No labeling standard. No federal rule requires farm, ownership or production-system information on pork.

Feature (FAT assessment)	Beef	Pork
How animals reach the plant	Feedlots selling to packers	Production contracts and packer-owned hogs
Open-market price discovery	Limited	Very limited (about 1% negotiated, 2021–2022)
Public visibility of supply chain	Limited	Minimal

6. Implications for FAT

Pork presents a harder transparency problem than beef. Fewer hogs change hands in a visible market, more of the chain is controlled by one company, and the label rarely says where the animal was raised. U.S. pork processing runs under close food safety oversight, but production practices, ownership and supply geography remain largely undisclosed to the buyer. FAT’s work therefore relies on public records that can be matched to plants: FSIS establishment listings, EPA permit data, company filings and USDA market reports.

Related FAT maps

FAT’s pork supply chain maps show FSIS-inspected pork slaughter and processing plants alongside EPA ECHO permit compliance records, so readers can see where plants sit relative to hog production.

Sources

Working paper. First prepared March 20, 2026; revised September 24, 2026 with data as of that date. Corrections welcome: dirkadams@farmanimaltransparency.com.