Meatpacking consolidated rapidly in the last two decades: slaughter plants became much larger, and concentration increased as smaller firms left the industry. We use establishment-based data from the U.S. Census Bureau to describe consolidation and to identify the roles of scale economies and...

Empirical analysis of mergers and acquisitions in eight important food industries suggests that workers in acquired plants realized modest increases in employment and wages relative to other workers. Results also show that mergers and acquisitions reduced the likelihood of plant closures while...

This paper uses plant-level micro-data covering the 1987-2002 and a translog cost function to estimate long-run costs in the meat and poultry industry in order to evaluate the impact of the Pathogen Reduction Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point Rule on cattle, hog and chicken slaughter and...

This paper uses plant-level micro-data from the 2002 Census of Manufactures, Food Safety Inspection Service, and the Economic Research Service in a translog cost function to examine the costs of effort devoted to the performance of sanitation and process control tasks and levels of food safety...

This paper uses probit regressions and data from the Food Safety Inspection Service to empirically examine the food safety performance of establishments supplying raw chicken to the National School Lunch Program. Results provide some support that plant supplying the National School Lunch Program...

Food safety technology can increase a company’s capacity to prevent a foodborne contamination. A food safety audit—a quality control tool in which an auditor observes whether a plant’s processing practices and technologies are compatible with good food safety practices—can indicate how...

Consolidation and structural changes in the food industry have had profound impacts on firms, employees, and communities in many parts of the United States. Over 1972-92, eight important food industries underwent a structural transformation in which the number of plants declined by about...

Processing plants in eight major food industries were highly productive before being acquired and they significantly improved their labor productivity afterward, Economic Research Service and U.S. Census Bureau researchers found in their analysis of Census data. The plant-level data on...

This paper investigates the motives for mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. meat products industry from 1977-92. Results show that acquired meat and poultry plants were highly productive before mergers, and that meat plants significantly improved productivity growth in the post-merger periods,...