Meat processing in the United States spans large federally inspected facilities, smaller plants, on-farm slaughter, and a workforce covering cutting, trimming, packing, and management. In 2024, total U.S. red meat production was 55.0 billion pounds, including 54.9 billion pounds from commercial production and 91.0 million pounds from on-farm slaughter. These figures come from the Livestock Slaughter 2024 Summary.
Table of contents
- U.S. red meat production
- Cattle and beef processing
- Hogs and pork processing
- Sheep, lamb, veal, and smaller categories
- Processing plants and industry concentration
- Meat processing employment and wages
U.S. red meat production
The 2024 production totals show how heavily U.S. meat processing is concentrated in beef and pork. Beef production reached 27.0 billion pounds, while pork production reached 27.8 billion pounds. Together, those two categories accounted for 54.8 billion pounds of the 55.0 billion-pound total red meat production figure.
The remaining reported categories were much smaller by weight. Veal production was 45.3 million pounds, and lamb and mutton production totaled 139 million pounds. On-farm slaughter contributed 91.0 million pounds of red meat, compared with 54.9 billion pounds from commercial red meat production. The distinction matters because the commercial total and the on-farm total describe different channels within the broader production picture.
The source’s 2024 figures are production totals for the United States, not estimates of household consumption or retail sales. They also describe livestock slaughter and resulting meat production rather than wild game processing specifically. For readers who handle venison or other game, the numbers provide context for the scale of the commercial meat system without measuring the separate wild-game supply chain.
Cattle and beef processing
Commercial cattle slaughter totaled 31.8 million head in 2024. Federal inspection accounted for 98.2% of commercial cattle slaughter, showing that nearly all reported commercial cattle slaughter in this category moved through federally inspected operations. The average live weight for commercial cattle slaughter was 1,399 pounds.
Federally inspected cattle slaughter was distributed across several animal classes. Steers represented 48.6%, and heifers represented 32.0%. Dairy cows accounted for 8.7%, while other cows accounted for 9.1%. Bulls represented 1.6%.
The cattle figures can be summarized as follows:
| Cattle measure | 2024 figure |
|---|---|
| Commercial cattle slaughter | 31.8 million head |
| Federal inspection share | 98.2% |
| Average live weight | 1,399 pounds |
| Steers in federally inspected slaughter | 48.6% |
| Heifers in federally inspected slaughter | 32.0% |
| Dairy cows in federally inspected slaughter | 8.7% |
| Other cows in federally inspected slaughter | 9.1% |
| Bulls in federally inspected slaughter | 1.6% |
Commercial calf slaughter totaled 211,900 head in 2024. Federal inspection accounted for 96.0% of commercial calf slaughter, and the average live weight for commercial calves was 323 pounds. These calf figures are separate from the adult cattle totals and should not be combined with them without a defined methodology.
Hogs and pork processing
Commercial hog slaughter totaled 130 million head in 2024, making hogs the largest reported slaughter category by head count among the cattle, hog, and sheep-and-lamb figures in the summary. Federal inspection accounted for 99.5% of commercial hog slaughter. The average live weight for commercial hogs was 288 pounds.
The federally inspected hog mix was dominated by barrows and gilts, which represented 97.3% of slaughter. Sows represented 2.4%, and boars represented 0.2%. These percentages describe the animal composition of federally inspected hog slaughter, while the 130 million-head figure describes commercial hog slaughter overall.
The combination of 27.8 billion pounds of pork production and 130 million commercial hogs shows the scale of pork processing in the 2024 U.S. figures. The production total is measured in pounds of pork; the slaughter total is measured in head. They are related measures, but the source does not provide a conversion formula for deriving an average pounds-per-head figure, so no such calculation is made here.
Sheep, lamb, veal, and smaller categories
Commercial sheep and lamb slaughter totaled 2.21 million head in 2024. Federal inspection accounted for 86.7% of that commercial slaughter, a lower inspection share than the reported cattle and hog shares. The average live weight for commercial sheep and lamb slaughter was 119 pounds.
Lambs and yearlings represented 93.3% of federally inspected sheep slaughter. The source separately reports 139 million pounds of lamb and mutton production for 2024. That production figure includes lamb and mutton together, while the animal-composition figure identifies lambs and yearlings within federally inspected sheep slaughter.
Veal production was 45.3 million pounds in 2024. The summary also reports 211,900 head of commercial calf slaughter and a 323-pound average live weight for commercial calves. Calf slaughter and veal production are connected categories, but the supplied figures do not state that every calf in the slaughter count became veal or provide a direct yield relationship.
The smaller categories are important when interpreting national totals. Beef and pork dominate by pounds, while sheep, lamb, veal, and on-farm production represent much smaller reported quantities. That scale difference does not indicate that small operations or specialty meats are unimportant to individual cooks; it describes only the national totals in the cited summary.
Processing plants and industry concentration
There were 1,089 plants slaughtering under federal inspection on January 1, 2025, compared with 1,012 plants on January 1, 2024. The same Livestock Slaughter 2024 Summary reports about 1,825 non-federally inspected slaughter plants in the United States. Combining the federal and non-federal counts gives approximately 2,914 livestock slaughter plants in total, as reported in the supplied figures.
During 2024, 911 federally inspected plants slaughtered at least one head of cattle. The summary also reports that the 12 largest federally inspected cattle plants slaughtered 51% of total cattle slaughter. This is a concentration measure for cattle slaughter, not for all meat production or every type of processing facility.
The 2024 cattle plant-size figures show how activity was distributed among reported size groups. The largest cattle plant size group contained 560 plants slaughtering 69.5 thousand head each. The 1,000-to-9,999-head group contained 62 plants and 209.8 thousand head. The 10,000-to-24,999-head group contained 29 plants and 493.9 thousand head. The 25,000-to-99,999-head group contained 9 plants and 440.8 thousand head. The 100,000-to-249,999-head group contained 4 plants and 701.0 thousand head.
The summary lists 664 total federally inspected cattle plants in 2024, with 1,914.9 thousand head slaughtered in the associated plant-size table. For comparison, the 2023 cattle plant total was 835 federally inspected plants with 32,232.9 thousand head slaughtered. Because these table figures use different reported totals and table contexts, they should be read as source-reported year figures rather than used to infer an unexplained year-over-year change.
The 2023 cattle size groups reported in the summary included 11 plants in the 1,000,000-plus-head group with 14,811.1 thousand head; 10 plants in the 500,000-to-999,999 group with 6,756.1 thousand head; and 13 plants in the 300,000-to-499,999 group with 5,208.7 thousand head.
The 2023 hog plant total was 718 federally inspected plants with 127,334.1 thousand head slaughtered. Within the reported 2023 hog size groups, 14 plants in the 4,000,000-plus group accounted for 76,649.8 thousand head; 2 plants in the 3,000,000-to-3,999,999 group accounted for 6,868.0 thousand head; and 11 plants in the 2,000,000-to-2,999,999 group accounted for 28,692.4 thousand head.
For sheep and lambs, the 2023 total was 601 federally inspected plants with 1,838.8 thousand head slaughtered. The 100,000-to-249,999 size group had 4 plants and 720.5 thousand head. These plant-size figures illustrate why a national processing total can coexist with both numerous smaller plants and a relatively small number of very large facilities.
Meat processing employment and wages
The BLS May 2023 OEWS data for animal slaughtering and processing reported 542,990 workers across all occupations in the industry. The same industry data listed 11,600 management workers, 11,770 butchers and meat cutters, 101,190 meat, poultry, and fish cutters and trimmers, and 66,230 slaughterers and meat packers.
For slaughterers and meat packers in the industry, the median hourly wage was $18.44 in May 2023. The mean hourly wage was $18.76, and the annual mean wage was $39,010. These are BLS May 2023 OEWS measurements for the named industry and occupation; they are not current wage estimates for every meat-processing job or every geographic area.
The occupation counts provide different views of the workforce. The all-occupation total includes the entire reported industry workforce, while the management, butcher, cutter-and-trimmer, and slaughterer-and-packer figures identify particular occupational groups. They should not be added together as though they were mutually exclusive or exhaustive categories unless the source defines them that way.
Separate BLS Food Manufacturing NAICS 311 figures report average hourly earnings of $28.57 in January 2026 and $28.70 in April 2026. The same source reports average weekly hours of 39.5 in January 2026 and 40.0 in April 2026. These figures describe the broader food-manufacturing industry, not specifically animal slaughtering and processing, and the supplied labels identify them as 2025 BLS industry figures despite the January and April 2026 measurement dates. They are therefore best kept distinct from the May 2023 occupational wage figures.
For readers interested in wild game cooking, the practical takeaway from these statistics is scale and category: the commercial U.S. system is dominated by beef and pork, operates through both federally and non-federally inspected plants, and employs large occupational groups in cutting, trimming, slaughter, packing, and management. Venison processing at home or through a local processor sits outside these national commercial totals, so the figures provide industry context rather than a direct measure of wild game availability or processing capacity.