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Biden administration pledges $1 billion to help small meatpackers compete

Jan 4, 2022
Just four companies process the lion's share of meat. Critics say that means high prices for consumers and low prices for ranchers.
Though the aid is meant to help smaller meatpackers expand their processing capacity, the industry is hampered by a shortage of workers.
Brent Stirton via Getty Images

How one food producer kept business going amid the pandemic

Jun 16, 2020
Grand Prairie Foods lost 80% of its hospitality and travel-related business in one day. To survive, it's focusing on packaged foods.
When the Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, became one of the hot spots of the COVID-19 outbreak, Kurt Loudenback, the CEO of Grand Prairie Foods, asked many of his workers to stay home.
Kerem Yucel/AFP via Getty Images

How Latinos are transforming the economy of a small rural town

Sep 8, 2017
Immigrants drawn by jobs at the local meat-packing plant are making their mark in business and politics.
Norma Corral, an immigrant from Mexico, worked at Cargill's beef processing plant in Schuyler, Nebraska for a decade before opening up her business, Paleteria Oasis, in downtown.
Daisy Palacios/Marketplace

In Nebraska, immigrants work hard-to-fill jobs in meatpacking industry

Sep 8, 2017
The nation's food supply chain could collapse without immigrant labor.
Chuck Folken is the owner of Folken Feed Yards, a livestock feed farm in Leigh, Nebraska.
Daisy Palacios/Marketplace