Meat-packing industry

The meat-packing industry (also spelled meatpacking industry or meat packing industry) handles the slaughtering, processing, packaging, and distribution of meat from animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and other livestock. Poultry is generally not included. This greater part of the entire meat industry is primarily focused on producing meat for human consumption, but it also yields a variety of by-products including hides, dried blood, protein meals such as meat & bone meal, and, through the process of rendering, fats (such as tallow). In the United States and some other countries, the facility where the meat packing is done is called a slaughterhouse, packinghouse or a meat-packing plant; in New Zealand, where most of the products are exported, it is called a freezing works. An abattoir is a place where animals are slaughtered for food. The meat-packing industry grew with the construction of railroads and methods of refrigeration for meat preservation. Railroads made possible the transport of stock to central points for processing, and the transport of products. Before the Civil War, the meat industry was localized, with nearby farmers providing beef and hogs for local butchers to serve the local market. Large Army contracts during the war attracted entrepreneurs with a vision for building much larger markets. The 1865–1873 era provided five factors that nationalized the industry: The rapid growth of cities provided a lucrative new market for fresh meat. The emergence of large-scale ranching, the role of the railroads, refrigeration, and entrepreneurial skills. Cattle ranching on a large-scale moved to the Great Plains, from Texas northward. Overland cattle drives moved large herds to the railheads in Kansas, where cattle cars brought live animals eastward. Abilene, Kansas, became the chief railhead, shipping 35,000 cattle a year, mostly to Kansas City, Milwaukee and Chicago. In Milwaukee, Philip Armour, an ambitious entrepreneur from New York who made his fortune in Army contracts during the war, partnered with Jacob Plankinton to build a highly efficient stockyard that serviced the upper Midwest.