Cactus Beef Packing Plant, Texas

Texas is still the capitol of cattle country, with nearly half the 100 million beef cattle in the nation, and this plant, near the top of the Panhandle, currently owned by JBS, is massive, and typical. JBS, the world’s largest meat company, is based in Brazil. It bought the Swift Company, one of the original large American beef packers, based in Greely, Colorado, in 2007. Though totals are dropping, Americans still eat around 60 pounds of beef per person per year, from 30 million cows, and only four companies provide 80% of it: Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef, from a few dozen large packing plants around the country, like this one.