The Meat Racket: The Secret Takeover of America's Food Business Hardcover – February 18, 2014

This is a fundamentally compassionate book. It is compassionate towards the small meat producers who are squeezed by modern economies of scale, and compassionate towards the titans of industry that created these economies.Leonard gets out of the way of the story he is trying to tell. He manages to square the paradox of conveying admiration for the ambition and accomplishments of pioneers like Don Tyson while also seeing the fruits of those achievements clearly: hollowed-out towns across rural America, and meat this is made efficiently, but ruthlessly.Leonard dissects the distinct histories of the poultry, pork, and beef industries with precision and care. He is never preachy; where he indicts standard industry practices, he does so on the basis of meticulously gathered evidence. But he knows how not to get bogged down--the details he presents are always telling ones.He writes with the intimate ease of an expert about both regulatory maneuvering in Washington, DC and farmers and ranchers in Arkansas and Iowa.If you want to understand how America works today, read this book.If you want to know how that boneless, skinless chicken breast in the supermarket was created from a chicken, how it became poultry, read this book.It is a serious book, but also a quick read that captures you with the fluidity of its prose.HIGHLY RECOMMEND

You need to read this book to understand the concept of "chickenization." In the meat business, that means converting independent farmers into debt-enslaved peons who madly work themselves, their wives, and their children night and day for much less than minimum wage to enrich firms like Tyson. In the "sharing economy" it means atomizing independent businesses like hotels or taxi companies so their former employees scramble to enrich firms like Airbnb or Uber.This is a remarkably insightful book, reflecting the author Christopher Leonard's deep and careful research and skilled writing. The book covers much more than just the evolution of the Tyson chicken empire, though that is the inspiration of the work. Don Tyson was the business genius who led his family firm to the heights of power and depths of iniquity which Leonard explains so clearly, and which inspired so many other businesses. Leonard capped his research by interviewing Don Tyson himself.In the meat business, although the "farmers" contribute both financial and human capital essential to the overall enterprise they do not share in its profits. Each firm like Tyson owns all the elements of its overall business which have economies of scale (feed-mixing, hatchery, slaughter, marketing) but delegates the labor-intensive step of actually raising the animals on capital-intensive farmsteads to hapless peons. The peons do not ask for overtime or better wages as employees would, they do not shirk, they force their children to labor without pay-- because they think of themselves as "independent farmers," for a few years at least. They are not independent at all-- firms like Tyson supply the chicks, the feed, the medicines-- everything-- and take the grown chickens away every few months. Since the farmers don't own the animals they raise they cannot sell them into the market but must take whatever payment-- large or small-- their sponsoring firm decides to give them. They can't even quit easily because they owe huge mortgages on their farms, which Tyson and similar firms actually steer them to get.The concept and practice of chickenization has spread beyond the raising of meat animals. It is essentially how so-called "sharing" businesses like Airbnb or Uber and various similar competitors work.Airbnb owns all the good parts of its business. It does not tie up capital in dwelling rooms-- hosts supply those using mortgages for which they are solely liable (Airbnb refers new hosts to lenders for a commission)-- and does not employ housekeepers or maintenance staff-- as "independent businessmen" the hosts clean and patch. Uber is similar-- drivers buy the cars that Uber chooses with loans arranged by Uber, then to pay off those loans they drive Uber's customers around when Uber tells them to in return for payments set unilaterally by Uber (plus occasional tips). The drivers fuel and maintain the cars and pay all the taxes on them. Like chicken farmers, Airbnb hosts and Uber drivers contribute financial and human capital essential to the overall business, they work without minimum or overtime wages for payments set unilaterally by chickenizing firms, but they do not share in the overall profits.Competitively, Airbnb destroys hotels and Uber destroys taxi firms because chickenization drives down capital and labor costs so effectively. What firm can afford a hundred-million-dollar mortgage on a hotel when a competitor uses a ragtag army of hosts to provide an equivalent number of rooms using independent capital? Worse, what firm can afford to employ housekeepers or drivers, with all the overhead of managing them and accepting liability for their actions, when a competitor uses "independent businessmen" who work furiously without supervision because they're desperate to make their next loan payment?Reading "The Meat Racket" will teach you how to recognize chickenization in any industry (it's common in fast-food and small-retail franchising). That alone would justify the book, but the story Leonard tells, of the plight of the farmers, the history of the Tyson firm and the other firms which emulated it, the remarkable lives of Don Tyson, his father, and the people around them, is so interesting that you can read the book for sheer entertainment. For either or both, read this book.

A compelling book and a terrifying one. And a must read for anyone who's worried about what they're eating. And anyone who's ever wondered how come chicken and eggs are so cheap nowadays at the supermarket. Back in 16th century France, King Henry IV when he acceded the throne found a country devastated by war and launched what was probably History's first campaign to fight poverty and stimulate economic growth. He famously used the slogan "a chicken in every Sunday pot" - meaning that a chicken, then a luxury, should be the one meal of choice for every French family at least once a week. Now, four centuries later, we have chicken every day, we have eggs galore every morning.But what kind of chicken is it, what kind of meat? The author does a superb investigative job to answer that question, talking to everyone at Tyson Foods (one of the biggest corporation controling the meat market, from egg to frozen food) and digging into its history. All that makes for a captivating account. What contract farming means for the farmers working for Tyson Foods is revealed in all its hair-raising details.A pity the book doesn't go as far as I would have liked - but I shouldn't complain, after all, as its title implies, it stops at "the meat racket". Still, I would have liked to see more about what it means for consumers, I am especially worried about all the chemicals and genetic manipulations that go into modern meat production and what they do to us humans - could the current ghastly wave of obesity that has overwhelmed America and is now reaching Europe be ascribed to them? I fear so but of course I don't have the proof and this is not a book that will throw light on that aspect.Nevertheless, as far as it goes, this is an excellent book and it should be read. Your next fried egg will never look the same to you again! And maybe one of these days, in a follow-up book, Christopher Leonard will apply his remarkable investigative talents to uncover what modern agriculture does to human health. I am looking forward to it. Meanwhile, read this book, highly recommended.

Fascinating book. Gives a really good impression of what it's like to be a farmer under the thumb of a big meat producer. My only - very minor - criticism is that it slightly overplays the role of the producer and underplays that of the consumer with her demand for cheap meat. Nonetheless it is a great resource for anyone interested in the US meat market and well worth a read. It's also brilliantly written.

Product appears and feels as if it used, spine is broken in and the cover has extensive marking. Nothing wrong with used books but they should be new when paying for a new book

A must read for anyone interested in farming/the food chain. Most comprehensive, updated information I have seen in decades. This quality of information is hard to come by.