🐟 Is your meat, poultry, or catfish from Mississippi?
A Mississippi package carries one of two inspection marks: a federal USDA/FSIS establishment number or a Mississippi state establishment number issued by the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce (MDAC) Meat Inspection Division. FAT reads both. And because Mississippi is the epicenter of US farm-raised catfish production — a species under FSIS jurisdiction since 2016 — the same reading applies to catfish labels too.
Looking for a national brand or large processor? Full Processor Lookup →
Two Mississippi inspection marks — and what each one actually means
1. Federally inspected in Mississippi (USDA/FSIS)
The USDA/FSIS establishment number on the label (EST. ####, sometimes with an M, P, or V prefix) belongs to a plant located in Mississippi. This is a federal fact about where the product was slaughtered or processed under inspection, and the product can be sold anywhere in the country. Mississippi’s federal footprint is anchored by the state’s two largest industries: catfish (the MS Delta produces roughly half of all US farm-raised catfish — Consolidated Catfish / America’s Catch (Itta Bena), Heartland Catfish (Itta Bena), Simmons Farm Raised Catfish (Yazoo City), Delta Pride Catfish (Indianola)) and broiler chicken (Peco Foods in Bay Springs and Canton, Tyson Foods in Carthage, Wayne-Sanderson in McComb / Laurel / Collins / Hazlehurst). Plus pork operations like Prestage Farms and further-processing facilities across the state. The plant location does not mean the animal or fish was born or raised in Mississippi — the label’s Country/State-of-origin claim, not the plant location, tells you that.
2. State-inspected in Mississippi (MDAC Meat Inspection Division)
The label bears Mississippi’s state mark of inspection with a state establishment number licensed by the MDAC Bureau of Regulatory Services — Meat Inspection Division. Meat from these plants is inspected under a program the federal government has certified as “at least equal to” federal inspection, but may generally be sold only within Mississippi. Mississippi has cooperative agreements with FSIS for both the Talmadge-Aiken (TA) Program — under which MDAC state inspectors work inside federal plants — and the FSIS Compliance and Investigation Division (CID) Program. The Meat Inspection Division inspects approximately 56 plants across slaughter, processing, and custom-exempt categories.
Check a federal establishment number
MDAC publishes an interactive Meat Establishments Map for state plants (not a queryable EST-number database), so the checker below covers federal Mississippi plants only. For a state establishment number, use the MDAC map or contact the Meat Inspection Division at (601) 359-1191.
Sources: USDA/FSIS establishment directory, mirrored by FAT; MDAC Meat Establishments Map. · Full Meat Processor Lookup →
Mississippi’s federally inspected meat, poultry & catfish plants
Mississippi is the center of gravity for two federally regulated industries — farm-raised catfish and broiler chicken — plus significant pork and further-processing operations. For any specific EST. #### on a package, use FAT’s Meat Processor Lookup. A representative list of major Mississippi federal plants:
Catfish (Siluriformes) — FSIS-inspected since 2016
- Consolidated Catfish Producers, LLC (America’s Catch) — Itta Bena, MS (Leflore County)
- Heartland Catfish Company — Itta Bena, MS (Leflore County)
- Simmons Farm Raised Catfish, Inc. — Yazoo City, MS (Yazoo County)
- Delta Pride Catfish, Inc. — Indianola, MS (Sunflower County) — historically the largest US catfish processor
See FAT’s Catfish Supply Chain maps for the full Delta pond-to-plant geography and the corresponding plant-level enforcement layer. Because Siluriformes moved from FDA to FSIS jurisdiction under the 2008 and 2014 Farm Bills, Mississippi catfish is the highest-inspection-standard seafood on the American market.
Broiler chicken
- Peco Foods — Bay Springs (Jasper County), Canton (Madison County), Sebastopol (Scott County, further processing)
- Tyson Foods — Carthage (Leake County)
- Wayne-Sanderson Farms (Continental Grain / Cargill) — McComb (Pike County), Laurel (Jones County), Collins (Covington County), Hazlehurst (Copiah County), plus a large presence around Laurel HQ historically
- Marshall Durbin Companies historically operated in Hattiesburg (verify current status; the Marshall Durbin footprint has consolidated into other integrators)
See FAT’s Broiler Chicken Supply Chain and plant-level enforcement maps for the MS broiler geography and captive contract-grower structure.
Pork & further processing
- Prestage Farms of Mississippi, LLC — St. Pauline / Yazoo County area (pork slaughter and processing)
- Multiple further-processing and cold-storage facilities across the state
These are illustrative, not exhaustive. Confirm the specific plant on your label via the Processor Lookup or the USDA/FSIS Directory.
Mississippi’s state-licensed (state-inspected) plants
Mississippi’s MDAC Meat Inspection Division licenses approximately 56 plants under a program certified by USDA as “at least equal to” federal inspection. Their meat can be sold, but generally only within Mississippi. Rather than duplicate the roster here (MDAC publishes a live interactive map that changes as plants open, close, and switch categories), FAT points readers to the authoritative MDAC map.
MDAC — Meat Establishments Map
Interactive map of every MDAC-licensed meat establishment in Mississippi — state-inspected, federally inspected (mirrored), and custom-exempt — with species, category (slaughter / processing), address, and phone for each plant.
Contact the MDAC Meat Inspection Division at (601) 359-1191 or NicoleH@mdac.ms.gov to confirm current plant status. Custom-exempt Mississippi plants carry no state mark of inspection and must mark all products “Not For Sale.”
The Mississippi rules behind the state inspection mark
| Mississippi authority | What it does |
|---|---|
| Miss. Code Ann. §§ 75-33-1 through 75-33-39 (Meat, Meat-Food, Poultry Regulation & Inspection Law of 1960) | The original state statute authorizing inspection of meat, meat-food, and poultry, and the licensing/inspection of facilities. |
| Miss. Code Ann. §§ 75-35-1 through 75-35-33 (Mississippi Meat Inspection Law of 1968) | The modern state Meat Inspection Act — adulteration, misbranding, and processing requirements aligned with the federal Wholesome Meat Act of 1967. |
| Miss. Code Ann. § 75-35-201 | Establishes the cooperative agreement between MDAC and USDA/FSIS — the legal basis for the “at least equal to” program. |
| Miss. Code Ann. §§ 75-35-301 through 75-35-325 | Auxiliary provisions; in 1971, Mississippi became the 24th state to comply with the Federal Wholesome Meat Act of 1967. |
| Miss. Code Ann. §§ 41-51-1 through 41-51-33 (Animal and Poultry By-Products Disposal Law of 1964) | Regulates rendering plants and the transportation/disposal of poultry by-products, slaughterhouse offal, and dead-animal carcasses. |
| Talmadge-Aiken (TA) Program (MS-active) | Federal-state agreement under which MDAC state inspectors provide inspection service inside federal plants — unusual: MS is one of the states with active TA arrangements. |
| Compliance and Investigation Division (CID) Program | MDAC/FSIS cooperative agreement authorizing MDAC to inspect businesses that handle meat and poultry for law compliance. |
| Poultry Producer Exemption Registration (two-tier) | Mississippi administers registrations for producers slaughtering 1,000 birds or fewer per year (the federal P.L. 90-492 small-flock exemption) AND for producers slaughtering 1,000 to 20,000 birds per year (the state-administered mid-tier exemption). Registration forms live on the MDAC Meat Inspection page. |
| Mississippi Cottage Food Law (2013; MDAC guidance) | Direct producer-to-consumer sales of certain non-potentially-hazardous homemade foods up to $35,000 in annual sales. Excludes meat and poultry entirely — no state carve-out for uninspected beef, pork, or bird meat. |
Enforcement records: the same transparency gap Montana, Minnesota, and Iowa have
For federally inspected plants, enforcement is public and queryable — recalls, suspensions, and quarterly enforcement reports (see FAT’s Processor Lookup). For state-inspected plants, MDAC is required to run an enforcement system “at least equal to” FSIS — but Mississippi, like most states in this series, does not publish a live plant-level enforcement dashboard. The noncompliance records exist; they are reachable through Mississippi Public Records Act requests (Miss. Code Ann. § 25-61) filed with MDAC, but not through a live dashboard. The public window: FSIS’s annual “at least equal to” review of the Mississippi program. FAT counts that difference as a transparency fact, the same way it does for Montana, Minnesota, and Iowa.
Why FAT keeps “processed in Mississippi” and “raised in Mississippi” separate — and why catfish is a special case
An establishment number — state or federal — identifies the inspected plant where a product was processed. For catfish, Mississippi is unusual in that the same MS Delta counties that host the processing plants (Leflore, Sunflower, Yazoo) also host the ponds that raise the fish. So a Mississippi catfish label with an MS establishment number and a “Product of the U.S.A.” claim is more likely than any other seafood label on the market to represent a genuinely local pond-to-plant supply chain — see FAT’s Catfish Supply Map. For broiler and pork, the plant-vs-raised distinction still matters: MS broiler plants pull birds from contract-grower networks across the Southeast, and MS pork plants draw hogs from a multi-state basin. So a Mississippi establishment number is solid evidence of processing in Mississippi — but the only reliable statement about where the animal was raised is the label’s own Country- or State-of-origin claim (for example “Product of the U.S.A.” or a specific “Raised in Mississippi” claim, backed by producer records). FAT reports each fact for what it is and never lets one stand in for the other.
Prepared by Dirk Adams with the assistance of AI.