Even while vegan diets and plant-based proteins grow in popularity, the meat industry still dominates America, making up the largest sector of U.S. agriculture.
According to data from Fortune Business Insights, the domestic meat market was valued at a whopping $170 billion in 2020, set to grow to well over $200 billion by 2028. And, the United States continues to boast the title of the world’s largest beef producer, making up over 20% of the global total.
But, as one of the largest markets in the country, the meat industry is also notorious for being one of the nation’s most scandal-plagued enterprises.
Whether you’re supposed to be on a diet or not, that steak on your plate is rarely served guilt-free.
From food-safety and animal-rights issues to employee mistreatment and environmental atrocities, the meat industry is riddled with unsavory practices and you’d be hard-pressed to find any major players in the space without some blood on their hands.
Raising and slaughtering livestock is a messy business. In order to churn out enough meat to keep up with demand, meat producers slaughter billions of animals every year. Much of this happens in factory farming situations, where scores of animals are crowded into compact spaces to minimize costs and maximize output. Data from the Sentience Institute estimates that 99% of all farmed animals in the U.S. are currently raised this way.
Critics allege that animals in factory farms are often abused and injected with growth hormones that enlarge them to unnatural sizes. And, in such tight spaces, disease can run rampant—the recent spread of Avian bird flu is a glaring example.
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