Two Smithfield plants, which handle 43,000 hogs a day or about 10 percent of the U.S. industry, already are ractopamine-free.

The American Meat Institute released a video tour of a pork slaughter plant hosted by leading animal welfare expert Temple Grandin, Ph.D.

The National Pork Board and Beef Checkoff Program received unanimous approval from the Industry-Wide Cooperative Meat Identification Standards Committee (ICMISC) to introduce updated Uniform Retail Meat Identification Standards (URMIS) nomenclature for fresh beef and pork for retailers to use on pack.

The fifth generation of the Strassburger family has begun to build Strassburger Meats outward from its legacy steakhouse business, launching a new retail line, opening up an e-commerce storefront and expanding into the export business.

Smithfield Foods Inc. reported strong fiscal 2013 third quarter results, driven by growth in packaged meats and solid contributions from international operations.

Opportunities are emerging to explore different cuts of meat and develop innovative applications that cross-utilize beef and pork across the menu.

The U.S. Meat Export Federation said shippers to China, the third biggest buyer of U.S. pork, intend to comply with a new requirement that products have test reports showing they are free of the additive ractopamine.

Smithfield leads the industry in the production of ractopamine-free pork.

China wants a third party to verify that U.S. pork shipped to the country is free of the ractopamine feed additive.