⭐ Is your meat or poultry from Texas?
A Texas package carries one of two inspection marks: a federal USDA/FSIS establishment number or a Texas state establishment number issued by the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) Meat Safety Assurance Section. FAT reads both. Neither mark, on its own, tells you where the animal was raised — and Texas hosts the largest beef-slaughter footprint in the country, processing cattle drawn from a multi-state Panhandle feedlot basin.
Looking for a national brand or large processor? Full Processor Lookup →
Two Texas inspection marks — and what each one actually means
1. Federally inspected in Texas (USDA/FSIS)
The USDA/FSIS establishment number on the label (EST. ####, sometimes with an M or P prefix) belongs to a plant located in Texas. 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. Texas hosts the largest concentration of federally inspected beef slaughter capacity in the United States — the Panhandle plants together account for a substantial share of national fed-beef processing. Major Texas federal plants include Tyson Fresh Meats (Amarillo — one of the largest US beef plants), JBS USA (Cactus — another top-tier beef plant), Cargill Meat Solutions (Friona, Bovina), Caviness Beef Packers (Hereford), plus Sanderson Farms / Wayne-Sanderson (Bryan, Waco — broiler), Pilgrim’s Pride (Mount Pleasant, Nacogdoches, Lufkin — broiler), and Perdue Farms (Bryan — broiler). The plant location does not mean the animal was born or raised in Texas — the label’s Country/State-of-origin claim, not the plant location, tells you that.
2. State-inspected in Texas (DSHS Meat Safety Assurance Section)
The label bears Texas’s state mark of inspection with a state establishment number licensed by the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) — Meat Safety Assurance (MSA) Section. 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 Texas. Texas participates in the federal Cooperative Interstate Shipment (CIS) program, so a qualifying state plant (generally ≤25 employees) can be selected for CIS and ship product across state lines under a federal-style mark. Like the federal mark, a Texas state legend tells you where the product was processed — not where the animal was raised. Structural note: Texas is unique in this series in housing meat inspection in the health department (DSHS) rather than the agriculture department. Montana (Livestock), Minnesota (MDA), and Iowa (IDALS) all run their programs out of ag. Texas puts meat safety inside the same agency that runs restaurant licensing, tattoo studios, and vital statistics.
Check a federal establishment number
DSHS’s public establishment list is published as a PDF and XLS periodically, not as a searchable database with an EST-number cross-reference, so the checker below covers federal Texas plants only. For a state establishment number, use the DSHS Establishments by Grant Type list or contact the Meat Safety Assurance Section at 512-834-6760 / meat.regulatory@dshs.texas.gov.
Sources: USDA/FSIS establishment directory, mirrored by FAT; DSHS Meat Safety Assurance — Establishments by Grant Type. · Full Meat Processor Lookup →
Texas’s federally inspected meat, poultry & egg plants
Texas hosts the largest concentration of federally inspected beef slaughter in the country plus a major broiler footprint in East Texas. For any specific EST. #### on a package, use FAT’s Meat Processor Lookup. A representative list of the largest Texas federal plants:
- Tyson Fresh Meats — Amarillo (one of the largest US beef plants) and Sherman (turkey / further processing)
- JBS USA Beef (formerly Swift) — Cactus (another top-tier beef plant in the Panhandle)
- Cargill Meat Solutions — Friona (beef), Bovina (beef), plus Cargill Value Added Meats operations
- Caviness Beef Packers — Hereford (beef; independent Panhandle operator)
- Sanderson Farms (now Wayne-Sanderson, Continental Grain/Cargill) — Bryan (broiler), Waco (broiler)
- Pilgrim’s Pride (JBS) — Mount Pleasant (broiler), Nacogdoches (broiler), Lufkin (further processing)
- Perdue Farms — Bryan (broiler)
- Standard Meat Company — Fort Worth (further processing for the restaurant supply chain)
- Sysco Corporation — multiple TX cold-storage and further-processing sites (Houston HQ)
- Panhandle Provisions / Fricken Foods / Preferred Meats — regional TX further-processing operations
These are illustrative, not exhaustive. Confirm the specific plant on your label via the Processor Lookup. For the full federal roster, see the USDA/FSIS Meat, Poultry & Egg Product Inspection Directory.
Texas’s state-licensed (state-inspected) plants
Texas has on the order of 100+ state-inspected plants licensed by the DSHS Meat Safety Assurance Section across three grant types. Rather than duplicate the DSHS roster here (it changes as plants open, close, or switch grant types), FAT points readers to the live DSHS list — updated periodically and published as both PDF and XLS.
Texas DSHS — Establishments by Grant Type
The DSHS Meat Safety Assurance Section publishes its complete plant list, sorted by grant type (full inspection, voluntary inspection, custom exemption, poultry/rabbit exemption). Latest published version dated March 6, 2026.
Grant type codes: Full Inspection = state red meat and/or poultry slaughter and processing under continuous DSHS inspection with a mark of inspection for further resale within Texas · Voluntary Inspection = federally exempt operations that voluntarily submit to state inspection · Grant of Custom Exemption = slaughter and processing for the owner’s use only; product must be marked “Not For Sale” · Poultry/Rabbit Exemption Registration = producers slaughtering fewer than 10,000 birds AND fewer than 10,000 rabbits per year (Texas’s combined 10,000-bird / 10,000-rabbit state exemption is notably higher than the federal 1,000-bird producer/grower exemption under P.L. 90-492).
A representative sample of well-known Texas state-inspected operations (verify current grant type on the DSHS list):
- 44 Farms (Cameron, TX) — direct-to-consumer premium beef program; verify current DSHS grant
- Dean & Peeler Meatworks (Poth, TX) — state-inspected beef processor
- Salmon Creek Farms / Texas Legacy Meats — regional state-inspected operations serving direct markets
- Multiple community lockers across the state — East Texas, Hill Country, and Panhandle regions each have clusters of state-inspected small processors serving local direct sales
The DSHS list is the authoritative source for the complete current roster and grant status of every Texas state-inspected plant. Contact the DSHS Meat Safety Assurance Section at 512-834-6760 or meat.regulatory@dshs.texas.gov to confirm current plant status. Custom-exempt Texas plants carry no mark of inspection and must mark all products “Not For Sale.”
The Texas rules behind the state inspection mark
| Texas authority | What it does |
|---|---|
| Health & Safety Code ch. 433 (Texas Meat and Poultry Inspection Act) | Establishes Texas’s cooperative inspection program with USDA/FSIS; authorizes DSHS to license, inspect, mark, and enforce — the statute that puts meat inspection in the health department rather than agriculture. |
| Health & Safety Code ch. 433 generally & DSHS Grant of Inspection framework | Two grant types (full inspection, voluntary inspection) plus one custom exemption grant and one low-volume poultry/rabbit registration. Annual licensure and continuous or per-lot inspection depending on grant type. |
| 25 TAC ch. 221 | Adopts the federal meat & poultry regulations (9 CFR 300–500) as Texas law by reference — the same sanitation, HACCP, and labeling rules that federal plants follow, applied to Texas state-inspected plants. |
| Cooperative Interstate Shipment (CIS) | Federal program (2008 Farm Bill; implementing regulations 9 CFR 321). Texas participates. A CIS-selected plant is inspected by DSHS but its product bears a federal-style mark and can move in interstate commerce. |
| Poultry/Rabbit Low-Volume Registration (TX-specific) | Texas administers a state registration for producers slaughtering fewer than 10,000 birds AND fewer than 10,000 rabbits per year for sale — a combined threshold notably higher than the federal 1,000-bird producer/grower exemption under P.L. 90-492. |
| Health & Safety Code § 437.0192 (Cottage food) | Texas’s cottage food framework covers certain low-risk homemade foods for direct sale in-state. Excludes meat and poultry entirely — the cottage food route does not create a legal path to sell uninspected beef, pork, lamb, or bird meat in Texas. |
Enforcement records: Texas actually publishes more than most
For federally inspected plants, enforcement is public and queryable — recalls, suspensions, and quarterly enforcement reports (see FAT’s Processor Lookup). For state-inspected plants, Texas is the transparency outlier in this series in a good direction: DSHS operates a dedicated Compliance Actions — Meat Safety page and a formal Open Records Requests — Meat Safety intake, both hung off the Meat Safety program. That is more than Montana, Minnesota, or Iowa publish today. Anything not surfaced on the Compliance Actions page is still reachable through a Texas Public Information Act request under Gov’t Code ch. 552. The FSIS annual “at least equal to” review of the Texas program remains the federal window on the state’s overall performance. FAT counts Texas’s Compliance Actions page as a modest but real improvement over the norm.
Why FAT keeps “processed in Texas” and “raised in Texas” separate — and why it matters in the Panhandle
An establishment number — state or federal — identifies the inspected plant where a product was processed. This distinction matters enormously in the Texas Panhandle. Tyson-Amarillo, JBS-Cactus, Cargill-Friona, Cargill-Bovina, and Caviness-Hereford together anchor the largest fed-beef slaughter cluster in the country, and they draw cattle from feedlots across a five-state basin — TX, KS, OK, NM, and CO — via captive-supply arrangements, forward contracts, and cash purchases. See FAT’s Beef Supply Chain maps for the 50-mile drawing radius around each Panhandle plant, plus FAT’s Captive Feedlot Map and Captivity Tiers Map for the packer-owned vs. packer-contracted vs. independent breakdown of the TX feedlot base (drawing on TCEQ General Permit TXG920000, which authorizes 253 SIC 0211 beef cattle CAFO operations statewide). So a Texas establishment number is solid evidence of processing in Texas — 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 Texas” or “Texas Family Ranch” 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.