Smithfield Foods Pork Plant, North Carolina

Americans eat around 46 lbs of pork per person per year, from around 110 million pigs slaughtered every year. Top-producing states are Iowa, North Carolina, Minnesota, and Illinois. The largest pork processor in America–by far–is Smithfield Foods, whose massive plant in Tar Heel, North Carolina is known as “porkopolis.” The million square-foot plant, said to be the largest slaughterhouse in the world, is a heavily automated disassembly line, processing up to 32,000 hogs per day. Smithfield Foods was sold in 2013 to the Shuanghi Group of China.