James BarryCEO | Chef | Founder of Pluck | Host of Everyday Ancestral | 20+ year Pro Chef Health, Wellness, & Curiosity

The CORRUPTION of the Food Industry

20 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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This content was created by James Barry. This content was uploaded by James Barry. This is a YouTube video titled "The CORRUPTION of the Food Industry" (posted 2026-07-20) containing a short dialog between two speakers about consolidation and alleged corruption in the U.S. meat supply chain. The speakers discuss that 86% of animals are processed by four processors (two Brazilian-owned firms claimed to have bribed officials), how those processors create a bottleneck in the supply chain (producers → aggregators → feedlots → processors), and that ranchers are rarely profitable (profitable only 1–2 years out of 7). The excerpt focuses on industry concentration, foreign ownership, alleged bribery, and the resulting economic pressure on independent producers.

86% of all the animals processed in the United States are owned by 4 processors. 2 of them, they're not even American companies. They're Brazilian-owned and have direct ties to the cartel. They were caught bribing the president and 1,300 elected officials in Brazil. Those are the guys that control the processing in the United States. So they're just starving out this independent sector of the supply chain.
Who makes the money in the beef industry? Because it doesn't seem like it's the ranchers.
Ranchers are profitable 1 or maybe 2 out of every 7 years. You have to recognize the supply chain. So you have the producer, the aggregator, the feedlots, and then it goes on to the processing plants. And that is directly in the middle, and that is where the biggest bottleneck is because they control the processing.