Kansas City once housed the second-largest meat packing industry in the nation, just behind Chicago, known as the Kansas City Stockyards. The last cattle auction took place in September 1991. The stockyards then closed because of rising costs and changing agricultural marketing patterns.
Meat processing challenges have been discussed routinely in 2020 and 2021 as the Covid-19 pandemic made employee safety and availability a top priority. Today, gaps in the processing capacity are somewhat being supplemented by small processors and direct-to-consumer beef butchers and sellers.
Source: KC Today, November 10, 2021. Link.