Tyson Foods

The U.S. Cattlemen's Association petitioned the USDA to establish label requirements for laboratory-grown meat and alternative proteins, said the weekly Tri-State Livestock News, of Belle Fourche, S.D. "We look forward to working with the agency to rectify the misleading labeling of 'beef' products that are made with plant or insect protein or grown in a Petri dish," said USCA president Kenny Graner.

The venture arm of the giant meat processor Tyson Foods invested in Memphis Meats, a food tech start-up that is developing cultured meat produced directly from animal cells. The Arkansas-based company declined to say how much money Tyson Ventures injected into Memphis Meats for a minority stake in the "clean meat" operation.

Tyson Foods is the second U.S. poultry processor to report contact by the Florida attorney general's office in an investigation of the former Georgia dock pricing system, reports the news site Just Food. The wholesale chicken price index was abandoned last year after reports indicated it set prices higher than other indices, "suggesting there may have been over-inflation at the supermarket prices for chicken," said the site, based in Britain.

The USDA confirmed the second case of highly pathogenic avian influenza in southern Tennessee since March 4, in a 55,000-bird broiler-breeder flock less than two miles from the first outbreak in Lincoln County. "Depopulation has begun," a standard step to prevent spread of the bird flu virus that can wipe out an infected flock in two days, said USDA.

The giant U.S. food processor Tyson Foods launched a $150-million venture-capital fund "to invest in high-tech products and services that could refresh its stable of products, which include chicken, hot dogs and hamburgers," reports the Wall Street Journal. One focus of the fund will be alternative forms of protein, a field that includes plant-based foods, insect-based protein products, meat grown from self-reproducing cells and meat from 3-D printers.

One of the biggest meatpackers in the world, Tyson Foods, "appears to be the first big meat company to invest in a business that, among other things, aims to reduce consumption of chicken, beef and pork by replacing it with plant proteins, says the New York Times. Tyson purchased a 5-percent share of Beyond Meat, based in California.

Poultry workers say they are routinely denied bathroom breaks, according to a report by Oxfam America, based on interviews with workers at some of the nation's biggest poultry companies, including Tyson Foods, Perdue and Pilgrim's over the last three years.

The Supreme Court, on a 6-2 ruling, upheld a decision that Tyson Foods, the largest U.S. meatpacker, must pay $5.8 million in a wage dispute involving 3,000 workers at a pork processing plant in Iowa, reports the Associated Press.

Some of the largest U.S. food processors and retailers, including Walmart, Cargill and Tyson Foods, are "urging Congress to build on investments in the Fiscal 2017 appropriations legislation that would help combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria," says Feedstuffs.

Federal workplace records show that during the first nine months of 2015, "workers in meatpacking plants owned by Tyson Foods averaged at least one amputation a month," says Harvest Public Media, which credits occupational health professor Celeste Monforton for getting the data through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Tyson Foods, Inc. must sell its sow-buying unit, Heinold Hog Markets, to satisfy antitrust rules and proceed with its purchase of Hilllshire Brands Co. for $8.5 billion, the Justice Department said.

China barred pork imports from six U.S. processing plants and six cold storage facilities as part of its ban on the feed additive ractopamine, which helps hogs gain weight more rapidly, said Reuters.