Beef Packing Industry 2025: Small Plants Grow in Number While Large Plants Lose Market Share

ZISK
20 hours ago
1 min read

In 2025, total cattle slaughter was 29.252 million head, down 6.4% year over year and down 13.1% from the recent cyclical peak in 2022. Cattle slaughter in 2025 was at the lowest level since 2015.

Table 1 shows the breakdown of 2025 cattle slaughter by size categories of beef packing plants. This includes both fed and cow slaughter plants. Out of a total of 937 federally inspected packing plants, 94.8% (888 plants with capacity up to 100,000 head per year) accounted for 1.92 million head, 7.14% of total slaughter. By contrast, a total of 11 plants, with capacity in excess of 1 million head per year, accounted for 13.834 million head, or 47.3% of total cattle slaughter.

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