This paper examines the impact of food safety standards imposed on suppliers of ground beef to the National School Lunch Program by the Agricultural Marketing Service. Probit regression results show that plants approved by AMS that bid on contracts to supply the NSLP had a higher level of food...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reimburses schools for meals provided to students participating in the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs. Reimbursement amounts are based on national average estimated costs of meal production. Food prices, however, vary across the United...

Foodborne pathogens cause millions of human illnesses annually, many resulting in death or chronic illnesses. Universal methods to evaluate microbial risks and their associated costs have yet to be developed. Typically, risk analysis and economic analysis have been carried out independently. In...

This article investigates the motives for mergers and acquisitions (M&As) in the U.S. meat products industry from 1977 to 1992. Results show that acquired meat and poultry plants were very productive before mergers, and that all but the very largest meat slaughter and processing plants and all...

The compliance costs of the Pathogen Reduction Hazard Analysis Critical Control Program (PR/HACCP) rule have been controversial. Previous reports have used limited data to evaluate its overall and component costs. This paper addresses those deficiencies by examining compliance costs with data...

Cost function analyses using data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census reveal substantial scale economies in chicken and turkey slaughter. These economies show no evidence of diminishing as plant size increases, are much greater than those realized in cattle and hog slaughter, and have resulted in...

Sanitation and process control costs increased the costs of producing meat and poultry by about 0.5 percent in the period preceding the promulgation of the Pathogen Reduction/Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (PR/HACCP) rule of 1996. However, there was no benefit in trying to avoid...

Recent industry innovations improving the safety of the Nation's meat supply range from new pathogen tests, high-tech equipment, and supply chain management systems, to new surveillance networks. Despite these and other improvements, the market incentives that motivate private firms to invest in...