The government used to inspect your meat. Now the industry inspects itself, and food poisoning is rising

The USDA announced in March 2025 that it will permanently codify faster processing speeds at pork and poultry plants, finalizing inspection changes that began as temporary waivers during the COVID-19 pandemic. The move makes permanent a system that congressional investigators found prioritized industry profits over worker health during the deadliest period of the pandemic.

Under the new policy announced by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, the Food Safety and Inspection Service will extend waivers allowing meat facilities to maintain higher line speeds while beginning immediate rulemaking to make these increases permanent, according to an official USDA announcement from March 2025.

How COVID opened the door

The current policy traces directly back to decisions made during the pandemic's darkest days. In March 2020, the USDA granted Tyson Foods a regulatory waiver to allow company employees rather than government inspectors to check cattle carcasses at its massive Kansas plant, which slaughters up to 6,000 cattle daily, according to Food & Water Watch.

During the first two weeks of April 2020 alone, the USDA approved 11 additional waivers for poultry plants to increase their maximum line speeds from 140 to 175 birds per minute. At traditional speed limits, each federal inspector examines 35 birds per minute. Under the new system, a single inspector must examine three birds every second.

Congressional investigators later found that plants operating with these higher line speeds were 10 times more likely to have coronavirus outbreaks than plants without the waivers, according to American Oversight.

Industry influence revealed

A 2022 House Select Subcommittee investigation, based on 151,000 pages of internal company documents, revealed the extent of meatpacking industry influence over pandemic policy. The investigation found that Tyson's legal department drafted a version of the executive order that President Trump signed in April 2020 to keep plants open.

According to ProPublica's reporting, industry emails showed executives requesting government help getting workers to show up rather than better safety equipment. One industry lobbyist wrote in May 2020: "Now to get rid of those pesky health departments!" after discussing limiting safety measures.

By July 2020, according to academic research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 6% to 8% of all COVID-19 cases in the United States were tied to meatpacking plant outbreaks. By October 2020, community spread from the plants had generated an estimated 334,000 illnesses and 18,000 COVID-related deaths.

The waivers never stopped

Rather than ending when the pandemic emergency passed, the waiver system expanded. The Biden administration extended the line speed waivers while commissioning worker safety studies. Those studies, released in January 2025, found that workers across all participating plants reported high levels of upper extremity pain.

Despite these findings, the Trump administration announced in March 2025 that FSIS will no longer require plants to submit worker safety data at all, citing claims that "extensive research has confirmed no direct link between processing speeds and workplace injuries."

The decision drew sharp criticism. Food & Water Watch senior attorney Zach Corrigan called the privatization approach "really problematic." Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, warned that "increased line speeds will hurt workers - it's not a maybe, it's a definite."

What fewer inspectors means

The practical impact is significant. Under the New Poultry Inspection System, the number of government inspectors on slaughter lines dropped substantially, with company employees taking over tasks previously performed by federal workers. At pork plants operating under the New Swine Inspection System, inspectors have as little as 2.6 seconds to verify that company employees properly performed their safety checks, according to Food & Water Watch.

According to a January 2025 Government Accountability Office report, FSIS has not finalized any new or updated standards for Campylobacter and other illness-causing pathogens in meat products since 2018. The agency also rolled back proposed Salmonella regulations for poultry that had been set last August.

Meanwhile, NPR reported in May 2025 that remaining inspectors must now visit eight facilities daily, double the usual number, following an exodus of federal workers taking early retirement offers. One longtime inspector told NPR: "Did that plant receive that daily inspection from inspection personnel? In my mind, that's a huge question mark."

The impact

The meat industry maintains the changes improve efficiency while preserving safety standards. The National Chicken Council stated that the industry's injury and illness rate has fallen 89% over 30 years even as line speeds increased.

But consumer advocates remain unconvinced. Thomas Gremillion, director of food policy at the Consumer Federation of America, called privatized inspection "a recipe for food safety disaster." CDC data shows foodborne illnesses from foods including chicken have been on the rise since 2015.

What began as emergency pandemic measures have become the new normal for American meat production, with federal oversight reduced and industry self-inspection expanded. Whether this system adequately protects workers and consumers may only become clear with the next major outbreak.