The Chain

September 1, 2014
In this cautionary tale of a leading meat producer, the former editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review and contributing editor of Mother Jones delves into the inner workings of Hormel Foods, a company struggling to meet America’s insatiable hunger for hog products while keeping prices down. Hormel, with major plants in the nation’s heartland, keeps its conveyor belts operating full speed, processing all edible parts of the hog, including severed hog heads, sliced ears, clipped snouts, sliced cheek meat, and cut-out tongues. While hams, sausages, and Spam are processed at breakneck speed, Genoways discovered that the meatpacking giant often put profits over people, interviewing former and current workers, with fingers lost to saws or disabled by unrelenting illnesses. A medical team found plant workers wear little protective gear, which leaves them exposed to the inhalation of illness-causing aerosolized brain matter, but when sick employees filed for disability, they were rejected. Residents of town near Hormel plants also feel threatened by the company’s workers (largely illegal), as well as by water and soil contamination in small towns from plant runoff. Comparable to Sinclair’s classic expose, The Jungle, Genoways’s blistering account of the meatpacking industry makes the case for tighter monitoring of this powerful sector of American agribusiness.