Research—
Meatpacking severe injuries by company: Tyson, Pilgrim's, Cargill and the OSHA record
Animal slaughtering and processing reported 2,177 severe injuries to federal OSHA (2015–2025) — 1,019 of them amputations, a 47% rate nearly double the archive-wide 26%. The employers with the most reports, and the machine-guarding story behind the count.
When people ask which meat and poultry companies are dangerous to work for, the honest answer is that the whole industry runs hot. Animal slaughtering and processing — NAICS 3116 — filed 2,177 severe-injury reports with federal OSHA between January 2015 and October 2025. Employers must file these within 24 hours of any amputation, in-patient hospitalization, or loss of an eye, so each one is a serious injury by definition.
What sets meatpacking apart is not the volume but the severity mix. Of those 2,177 reports, 1,019 — 47% — are amputations. Across all 105,313 reports in the federal archive, the amputation share is 26%. Meatpacking runs nearly double the national rate: in this corner of the economy, a severe injury is more likely than not to cost a worker part of a hand.
Why amputations dominate
The cause is structural, not incidental. Slaughter and processing lines are built from band saws, grinders, augers, conveyors, and powered knives — blades and moving parts that sit inches from a worker's hands on a line that does not stop. When a guard fails, a glove catches, or a worker reaches in to clear a jam, the outcome is an amputation rather than a bruise. Fingers and hands take the overwhelming share of those losses. A further 1,375 of the sector's reports (63%) involved a hospitalization, and the two categories overlap heavily.
The companies behind the count
The employers with the most federal OSHA severe-injury reports in animal slaughtering and processing are the household names of American meat and poultry. Each links to its full record on Safety Incidents. Tyson's reports are split across three reporting entities that together account for 218.
| Employer | Severe-injury reports |
|---|---|
| Tyson Foods, Inc. | 135 |
| Wayne Farms, LLC | 47 |
| Swift Beef Company | 46 |
| Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc. | 43 |
| Pilgrim's Pride Corporation | 42 |
| Tyson Poultry, Inc. | 40 |
| Smithfield Foods | 32 |
| Peco Foods, Inc. | 25 |
| Cargill Meat Solutions | 22 |
| Sanderson Farms, Inc. | 21 |
These counts reflect plant footprint and reporting volume as much as any single site's safety record — a company running dozens of large plants will report more than a single-facility processor. They are a starting point for a question, not a verdict: each employer page opens the underlying incident narratives, dates, and locations so you can read what actually happened.
Read the records
See all 1,019 meatpacking amputation records, the full meatpacking & poultry industry page, or how the pattern fits the wider 46% amputation rate across food manufacturing and amputations across all manufacturing.
Source: OSHA Severe Injury Reports, federal jurisdiction, NAICS 3116 (animal slaughtering and processing), January 2015 – October 2025. State-plan states (CA, WA, OR, and 19 others) run their own programs and are not included in the federal dataset.