America's Largest Meat Processing Company Makes Over $50 Billion Annually: Do You Know Which?

Americans love meat. Whether it's popping into a Chick-fil-A drive thru or picking up a USDA prime steak to cook at home, there's no shortage of ways to get poultry, beef, pork, and more. There's one major meat processing company that has packaged meat products all over store shelves. Meat giant Tyson Foods sells more than $50 billion annually of its products, and while a small amount of this does come from international sales, the large majority is from U.S.-based consumers.

Tyson's original founder, John W. Tyson, started the company back in 1931 by just selling chickens. Eventually, as chicken sales grew, Tyson opened its first processing plant in 1963, which has since morphed into the Tyson Foods we know today. Some Tyson products should be kept out of your grocery cart, but a number of others are worth reaching for, such as the canned chicken we ranked number one. Surprisingly, Tyson's majority of sales doesn't come from chicken, though; around 40% of its annual sales come from beef products. Chicken, on the other hand, accounts for 31%, while pork is just 11%. Another large part of Tyson's market is prepared foods, which account for 18% of its sales.

With a team of about 133,000 employees, it's no surprise Tyson produces around 20% of U.S. meat products. But part of this is because Tyson owns plenty of other brands that don't outwardly bear the Tyson name. Jimmy Dean, Hillshire Farm, and Ball Park are all household packaged meat names owned under the Tyson brand. It even owns brands that have nothing to do with meat, such as Sara Lee baked goods.

As far as sales go, Tyson just keeps growing. Though it faced a massive chicken recall in 2019 (impacting millions of pounds of product), its current sales suggest the recall is long forgotten. In 2023, Tyson ended its fiscal year having done around $52.8 billion in sales. By 2024's fiscal year end, that number was up to $53.3 billion, and in 2025, it reached $54.4 billion. After reporting its 2025 numbers, Tyson noted it predicts beef sales could decline slightly in 2026, while pork and chicken sales are expected to increase, narrowing the margins between its three main types of meat.