One of the side effects of having a job like mine is that you develop an addiction to news. Between the press releases, newsletters, bookmarked websites and e-mail alerts I get on a daily basis, I read dozens of stories about this industry on a daily basis — some good news, some bad news, and some news that just defied explanation.
The bad news was all too easy to find this year, between meat recalls, animal-handling controversies, corporate layoffs, rising corn prices and the corresponding hike in meat prices. The poultry industry, of course, had it particularly bad, as the chicken supply in the country still hasn’t dropped to meet the decrease in demand. It may take months before that industry can stop the bleeding, if it can happen at all in 2012.