Who Is Big Meat?

On the first season of “Who Is?,” Sean Morrow explored Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and the military industrial complex. But what about the meat industrial complex? Whether it’s beef, chicken, or pork, most of the meat that winds up on your dinner plate is the ultimate result of an industrial food system controlled by a handful of powerful multinational meatpacking corporations: JBS, Smithfield, Cargill, Tyson, and National Beef. Big Meat. And for the most part, the story of Big Meat--and the system of industrial meat production that it controls--is a story untold, despite the enormous impact that these companies and this system has on everything from our diets, to the health and economic stability of rural communities in the United States, to the global climate crisis. On this episode of “Who Is?,” Sean Morrow takes a trip inside the refrigerator--and beyond--for the story of how Big Meat came to be, and what we can do about it.

Leah Douglas, an associate editor and staff writer at the Food and Environment Reporting Network 

Sherri Dugger, executive director of the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project

Joe Maxwell, former Lieutenant Governor of Missouri and co-founder and president of Family Farm Action Alliance

Shefali Sharma, director of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy’s European office 

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