Significant plant- and industry-wide disruptions have occurred in the U.S. meatpacking industry during the past several years. The result has been a reinvigorated interest in the possibility that industry concentration has facilitated anticompetitive behavior and a torrent of public policy proposals to improve resiliency. In this paper, we provide a contemporary synopsis of meat processing concentration statistics with the use of annual plant-level food safety and inspection service (FSIS) data that cover all federally inspected livestock processing facilities in the U.S. for the past 30 years. Beyond considering traditional concentration measures (e.g., CR4 and HHI), we exploit the plant-level nature of the data and consider trends in processing facility consolidation, ownership changes, and how regional procurement markets have changed over time.

过去几年，美国肉类加工行业发生了严重的工厂和全行业中断。其结果是，人们重新燃起了对行业集中可能助长反竞争行为的兴趣，并提出了大量旨在提高弹性的公共政策建议。在本文中，我们利用年度工厂级食品安全和检验服务 (FSIS) 数据提供了肉类加工集中度统计数据的当代概要，这些数据涵盖了过去 30 年美国所有联邦检验的牲畜加工设施。除了考虑传统的集中度衡量标准（例如 CR4 和 HHI）之外，我们还利用数据的工厂级性质，并考虑加工设施整合、所有权变化以及区域采购市场随时间变化的趋势。