Meat packing is the business of slaughtering cattle, hogs, and sheep, and preparing the meat for transportation and sale. The term meat packing comes from the once-common practice of packing highly salted meat in wooden barrels. The American colonists used this technique to preserve meat for storage or for shipment overseas. Today, meat packers use refrigeration as well as smoking, curing, and canning to preserve meat.

Meat packing is a major industry in many countries. China produces the most red meat (meat of cattle, hogs, and sheep). Other leading producers of red meat include Brazil, France, Germany, and the United States.

In the United States alone, the meat-packing industry produces more than 39 billion pounds (17.7 billion kilograms) of meat annually. About 140 million farm animals must be slaughtered yearly to produce this amount of meat. Raising and slaughtering these animals and processing the meat provide jobs for thousands of farmers, ranchers, butchers, and meat packers. About 5,000 meat-packing and processing plants in the United States employ about 225,000 workers.