Meat comes from the muscle tissue of animals raised and processed for food. The vast majority of meat sold worldwide comes from just a handful of species: chickens, pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, and turkeys. In 2024, global meat production reached an estimated 365 million metric tons, with roughly 80 billion animals slaughtered each year to meet demand.
What Meat Actually Is
When you eat a piece of meat, you’re eating skeletal muscle, which is the same type of tissue that allows animals (and humans) to move. About 90% of skeletal muscle is made up of muscle fibers, the long, thin cells that contract and relax. The remaining 10% is a mix of connective tissue and fat.
Connective tissue gives meat its structure. It wraps around individual muscle fibers, bundles of fibers, and the whole muscle itself in layers. The main protein in this connective tissue is collagen, which is why tougher cuts become tender with slow cooking: heat breaks collagen down into gelatin. Fat tissue sits between and within these layers, and its distribution is what butchers and graders call “marbling.” More marbling generally means more flavor and tenderness.
Which Animals Produce the Most Meat
Chickens dominate by sheer numbers. In 2018, about 69 billion chickens were slaughtered worldwide for meat, dwarfing every other species. After that came pigs at 1.5 billion, sheep at 574 million, goats at 479 million, turkeys at 656 million, and cattle at 302 million. Despite cattle being slaughtered in far fewer numbers than chickens, each animal yields significantly more meat per head, which is why beef remains a major share of global production by weight.
In the United States, the average person eats about 264 pounds of meat per year. That figure includes beef, pork, chicken, turkey, and smaller quantities of lamb and other meats. Chicken consumption has grown steadily over the past few decades, while beef has declined from its mid-20th-century peak.
How Livestock Are Raised
The process varies dramatically depending on the animal. Beef cattle typically go through two or three distinct stages. Calves are born and raised on cow-calf operations, often on open pasture, where they nurse and graze for the first several months. After weaning, many are moved to a backgrounding phase where they continue growing on forage-based diets. The final stage for conventionally raised beef is a feedlot, where cattle are fed grain-heavy rations designed to promote rapid weight gain and marbling before slaughter.
Chickens raised for meat, called broilers, have a much shorter timeline. Standard commercial broilers reach about 5 pounds and are processed at just 8 weeks of age. Larger roasters are grown to 9 to 12 weeks and can weigh 7 to 10 pounds. Heritage and free-range breeds like Freedom Rangers grow more slowly, taking 12 to 15 weeks to reach market weight. Chicks start indoors under heat lamps with about one square foot of space each, then need double that space by around one month old. By five weeks, most are feathered enough to have supplemental heat removed, though they still need indoor temperatures around 65 to 70 degrees until they can go outdoors.
Pigs follow a middle path in terms of timeline. Piglets are typically born in farrowing facilities, weaned at a few weeks old, then raised in grow-finish barns where they reach market weight of roughly 250 to 300 pounds over about six months.
From Farm to Processing Facility
Once animals reach market weight, they’re transported to processing plants. The basic sequence is the same for all red meat: animals arrive and are held in pens, then moved to the slaughter area where they are stunned (rendered unconscious) before being killed. The carcass is then dressed, meaning the hide, internal organs, and other inedible parts are removed. After dressing, carcasses go into large coolers where the meat is chilled rapidly to prevent bacterial growth.
Processing plants are designed around a strict one-directional flow. Live animals enter at one end, and packaged meat exits at the other. This layout exists to prevent contamination, keeping raw and finished products separated at every stage.
How a Carcass Becomes Cuts of Meat
A whole beef carcass is first split lengthwise down the spine into two sides. Each side is then divided between the 12th and 13th ribs into a front quarter and a hind quarter. From there, butchers break each quarter into large sections called primal cuts.
The front quarter yields four primals: the chuck (shoulder area), the rib, the brisket, and the foreshank. The hind quarter produces the loin, the sirloin, the round (hip and leg), and the flank. These primals are large wholesale pieces, not what you see in a grocery store. Each primal gets broken down further into sub-primals, and then into the retail cuts you recognize: ribeye steaks from the rib primal, ground beef from the chuck, brisket from the chest area, filet mignon from the loin.
Pork and lamb follow similar principles with their own sets of primals. Poultry is simpler since the birds are smaller. Whole chickens are either sold intact or broken down into breasts, thighs, drumsticks, and wings.
Inspection and Grading
In the United States, all meat sold commercially must pass federal inspection by the USDA. This inspection checks for wholesomeness and safety, verifying the meat is free from disease and processed under sanitary conditions. It’s mandatory and funded by tax dollars.
Grading is a separate, voluntary system that evaluates quality. Beef grading, for example, assigns labels like Prime, Choice, and Select based on the amount of marbling and the age of the animal. Producers pay for grading themselves because higher grades command higher prices. Most beef you find at grocery stores is Choice. Prime goes largely to restaurants and specialty retailers.
Cell-Cultivated Meat
A newer source of meat skips livestock entirely. Cell-cultivated meat (sometimes called lab-grown meat) starts with a small sample of muscle cells taken from a living animal. Those cells are placed in a nutrient-rich liquid inside a bioreactor, a sealed vessel that mimics conditions inside an animal’s body. The cells multiply and, with the right chemical signals, develop into muscle fibers similar to those in conventional meat.
The process has four basic stages: isolating the right cells from animal tissue, growing them in a culture medium so they multiply, triggering them to mature into muscle fibers, and then verifying the cells have actually formed muscle tissue. The technology is still in early commercial stages, with only a handful of products approved for sale in a few countries. Scaling production to compete with conventional meat on price remains the central challenge.