Considering the fact that up to 95% of Americans eat meat as a staple part of their diet, it’s clear that the meat industry plays such a huge role in people’s lives. From poultry to beef, Americans truly love their meat products.
And, because meat producers can include companies that specialize in just beef or poultry production as well as a mix of producing types of meat, you’ll see all types of companies on this list. Let’s take a look at the biggest meat companies in the US.
Cargill Meat Solutions. Wichita, KS
2022 Sales: $165 billion
Cargill is one of the biggest meat producers in the US with products that span the whole range of meat production. They’re best known for their beef, turkey, and other food distribution services.
Cargill sells to both consumers directly through grocery stores and also to third-party food companies for wholesale. Their products include fresh beef, fresh pork, fresh and cured sausages, fresh pork, ham, bacon, poultry, and fresh deli meat.
Cargill operates more than 30 plants across the US and Canada with a total of around 165,000 employees.
2022 Sales: $68.636 billion
Sysco is known for its wide range of food services, including meat production and food preparation. They are a wholesaler who sells all their products, both fresh meats and prepared foods, in bulk. Sysco products go to all kinds of companies, like restaurants, healthcare facilities, schools, and hotels.
Their specialties include fresh beef, fresh pork, sausages, ham, deli meat, lamb, and specialty game meats. Sysco also deals with private label meat products. The company runs over 330 distribution centers across almost all 50 states, plus some Canadian provinces.
2022 Sales: $64.984 billion
JBS USA is the American offshoot of Brazilian meat producers JBS S.A. Across all of the JBS operations, they are the largest meat producer in the world. Their products include boxed beef, ground beef, fresh pork, bacon, poultry, lamb, seafood, meat-based snack foods, and even plant-based protein.
JBS works mainly with wholesale meat retail, but they do have some direct-to-consumer products that go to grocery stores from some of their subsidiary brands. They have locations in over 20 states and employ around 80,000 people.
2022 Sales: $53.282 billion
Known mostly for their poultry products, like chicken nuggets, Buffalo wings, and tenders, Tyson is the largest meat producer in the US for all kinds of meats. They are also important producers of ground beef, ham, fresh pork, and sausages, so their products cover most major meat products.
Under the Tyson foods name are also popular brands like Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, Ball Park, Wright Brand, Aidells, and State Fair. They operate in 45 states and employ over 140,000 people across their operations.
Smithfield Foods. Smithfield, VA
2022 Sales: $14.40 billion
What started as a father and son packing company has grown into a multi-national meat processing corporation. Besides their dozens of locations inside the US, they’re also present in Mexico, Poland, Romania, Germany, and the United Kingdom.
Smithfield focuses mainly on pork products, including fresh pork, ham, fresh and cured sausages, bacon, and deli meats, but they also have some seafood, game, and poultry products available. As of 2016, they had over 50,000 employees across all of their global operations.
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2022 Sales: $12.459 billion
Hormel is a popular meat company whose products are mostly directly sold to consumers, making it a household name.
Their products include fresh pork, ham, sausages, deli meat, poultry, seafood, prepared foods, and meat-based snack foods. Hormel includes products under the Hormel name as well as their subsidiaries, like Applegate, Country Crock, Jennie-O, and Spam.
The company employs about 20,000 people across a handful of locations in the US. Hormel is also a large meat producer globally, with exports and locations in Australia, Canada, Japan, Brazil, China, the Philippines, Panama, and South Korea.
2022 Sales: $11.536 billion
Conagra is a huge company whose products go to supermarkets, restaurants, and other foodservice companies. Their main products, both for retail and wholesale, include fresh meats, sausages, seafood, and prepared foods.
Conagra also produces many non-meat products, but they’re best known for their meat-producing brands like Banquet, Dukes’, Egg Beaters, Hebrew National, Hungry-Man, Kid Cuisine, Marie Callender’s, Slim Jim, and Van de Kamp’s.
Their main facilities are in Chicago and Omaha, but they also have other locations in the US and abroad, which employ around 18,000 people.
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2022 Sales: $11.00 billion
Koch Foods began as a one-room chicken processing company in 1973 and now they operate in six states (Illinois, Alabama, Ohio, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia). with many products available.
Like National Beef, they only produce one type of meat: chicken. Their chicken products can be found across the country under both the Koch Foods name and their subsidiary brands, like Antioch Farms, Preferred Foods, and Rogers Royal.
On the wholesale side, they provide meat for companies like Burger King, Kroger, and Walmart. Across their six locations, they employ around 14,000 people.
National Beef Packing Co. Kansas City, MO
2022 Sales: $9.40 billion
National Beef is somewhat unique to this list since they work exclusively with beef products instead of producing a wide variety of meats. They are also unique since they deal with cow meat as well as cow byproducts like leather.
National Beef’s most popular products include branded box beef, consumer-ready beef, and portion control beef.
Their subsidiary Kansas City Steak Company handles their portion control beef, which includes pre-portioned steaks and beef products to be delivered through the mail. Their processing plants are located in Kansas, Illinois, Missouri, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Iowa and they employ nearly 9,000 people.
2022 Sales: $7.90 billion
OSI is an important meat producer both in America and abroad. They operate over 65 facilities in more than 35 countries, which it has achieved by buying up smaller meat producers both within the US and internationally.
They produce many different products including fresh beef, fresh pork, ham, deli meats, sausages, fresh poultry, seafood, and meat snacks. OSI operates both as a retail producer as well as a wholesale supplier.
Some of the food vendors they sell to include Subway, Starbucks, Papa John’s Pizza, and Pizza Hut. OSI is unique because they have been recognized several times for their commitment to employee health and safety as well as environmental measures.
2022 Sales: $6.70 billion
Perdue is another household name thanks to its popularity as a direct-to-consumer company. They’re mostly known for their chicken products, including raw and pre-made poultry products, but they also make turkey and pork.
The company started in 1920 as a family-run business and members of the family still have leadership roles in the company.
Some of their products include fresh beef, fresh pork, fresh poultry, sausages, deli meats, and specialty organic/natural food lines. They have many locations across the US, especially in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, and Kentucky, which together employ over 21,000 people.
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Sanderson Farms Inc. Laurel, MS
2022 Sales: $4.80 billion
Like Koch Foods, Sanderson Farms focuses exclusively on poultry products. They’re considered one of the top poultry producers in the US, providing nearly 13.65 million chickens per week.
Sanderson mainly supplies raw chicken to supermarkets across the country. They are known for their fresh chicken, both whole and in parts. Sanderson employs around 18,000 people across its locations in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia.
