Most people in the United States had never experienced empty store shelves, but the pandemic in 2020 provided evidence of the lack of robustness in the meat supply chain.
In recent years, continued improvements in genomics technology have led to a substantial transformation in the ways that foodborne illness outbreaks are identified and solved.
At retail, November saw year-on-year deflation for processed pork products, including bacon, packaged lunchmeat, dinner sausage, breakfast sausage and smoked ham.
The Food and Drug Administration’s annual report tracking sales of antibiotics for livestock finds that medically important antibiotic sales related to meat production increased by 4% between 2021 and 2022, reversing years of declining use.