Eleven plants slaughtered a million cattle or more each in 2025, and between them they killed 13.8 million of the 29.3 million cattle in the United States, 47 percent. USDA publishes that count every year but never the names. This page puts the names, the owners and the towns to it.
What USDA counts
USDA's annual slaughter summary sorts every federally inspected cattle plant by the head it killed in the year.
| Year | Plants at 1 million head or more | Their kill, million head | Share of all cattle | All plants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 11 | 14.8 | 46% | 835 |
| 2024 | 12 | 15.8 | 50% | 911 |
| 2025 | 11 | 13.8 | 47% | 937 |
A plant at a million head a year runs about 4,000 cattle a day on a five-day week, so the million-head club is the plants that kill 5,000 to 7,000 a day. Oklahoma State's Derrell Peel counted sixteen such plants in 2000 and noted that the Lexington closure in January 2026 takes the club to ten. The seven plants between half a million and a million took another 16 percent in 2025.
The plants, by owner
USDA does not name them, so the capacities below come from the companies and from dated trade press, and the list of eleven is an inference from those figures, not a USDA table.
Tyson Foods, four plants in the club in 2025: Dakota City, Nebraska, the largest at about 7,000 head a day of capacity by 2019 trade-press figures; Holcomb, Kansas, about 6,000, per the Kansas Livestock Association at the time of the 2019 fire; Amarillo, Texas, about 6,000 on two shifts, cut to one shift in January 2026 with the second to return "as cattle become available"; and Lexington, Nebraska, 5,000 a day, closed in January 2026. Tyson's own filing lists eleven beef facilities with 155,000 head a week of capacity at September 2025.
JBS USA, three: Greeley, Colorado, about 6,000 a day, 5 percent of US beef; Grand Island, Nebraska, 6,000; Cactus, Texas, 5,200 by the company's 2014 figure, with a $150 million expansion of the cutting floor due in early 2027. JBS's 2025 annual report lists nine US fresh beef plants with an aggregate 28,198 head a day of capacity, before the Souderton kill ended.
Cargill, two in the club by the 2021 figures: Dodge City, Kansas, 5,200 a day, and Schuyler, Nebraska, 5,100; plus Fort Morgan, Colorado, 4,700, which sat idle through a lockout from May 20 to late August 2026, and Friona, Texas, about 4,500.
National Beef, owned by Marfrig of Brazil, two: Liberal, Kansas, 6,000 a day, and Dodge City, Kansas, at about the same size by trade-press accounts.
That is the eleven, and it is also the Big Four. The next tier belongs to others: Caviness at Hereford, Texas, 2,900 a day on fed cattle and cows; Greater Omaha Packing, 2,400 a day with a federal grant to reach 3,100; American Foods Group's new Wright City, Missouri plant, 2,400 a day, which started in April 2025; Agri Beef at Toppenish, Washington, 1,550; Cargill at Wyalusing, Pennsylvania, 1,500 on three shifts; Sustainable Beef at North Platte, Nebraska, which opened in May 2025 and reached 1,500 a day in February 2026; National Beef's Tama, Iowa plant, 1,300; Harris Ranch at Selma, California, 1,200.
Where they are
Four states. Kansas has Holcomb, Liberal and two Dodge City plants. Nebraska has Dakota City, Grand Island, Schuyler and, until January, Lexington. Texas has Amarillo, Cactus, Friona and Hereford. Colorado has Greeley and Fort Morgan. The fed cattle are in those states, and the plants sit where the feedyards are.
What 2026 took out
Tyson closed Lexington in January, cut Amarillo to one shift the same month, closed Joslin, Illinois (3,000 a day) in August and put Pasco, Washington (2,000) up for sale. Utah State's extension economists put Tyson's closed or idled capacity in 2026 at about 11,000 head a day, roughly 11 percent of the nation's fed-cattle harvest capacity. JBS ended the kill at Souderton, Pennsylvania (2,000 a day) on August 14, keeping the case-ready work.
Against that, two new plants opened in 2025, Wright City and North Platte, together under 4,000 a day, and Producer Owned Beef's 3,000-a-day plant at Amarillo is not due before late 2027. Plants are closing because the cattle are not there: the plant-closures article covers what that does to cattle and beef prices, which is less than the headline suggests.
How concentrated the kill is
The Meat Institute's October 2025 paper puts the four largest packers at about 81 percent of fed cattle purchased and slaughtered, against 82 percent in 1994, and argues the ratio has not changed in thirty years. USDA's Economic Research Service figure, 85 percent of steer and heifer purchases, is from 2019 data; its author put 2024 nearer 82 percent. Counting every animal including cows, the Big Four are about two thirds of the head.
Whichever figure you use, the eleven plants on this page are where most American fed beef is cut. The Big Four article covers what that does to cattle pricing and why one plant fire moves the national cutout.