All Other Food Manufacturing (U.S.) — NAICS 31199

An investor's rollup primer for public-market and private investors.

1. Overview

"All Other Food Manufacturing" is where the U.S. government files the food factories that don't fit any of the big named categories — not dairy, not meat, not bakery, not snacks, not milling. NAICS — the North American Industry Classification System, the standard code set the U.S. uses to count businesses — assigns it code 31199, a five-digit industry sitting inside the "Other Food Manufacturing" group (3119) in the Manufacturing sector.[1]

It is really two very different businesses under one roof, split between its two child industries:

• 311991 — Perishable Prepared Food Manufacturing: fresh, refrigerated, grab-and-go food — bagged salads and salad kits, wraps and sandwiches, fresh prepared meals, deli side salads, hummus and dips, cut fruit and vegetables. Short shelf life, cold chain, thin margins, fast-growing.[2]
• 311999 — All Other Miscellaneous Food Manufacturing: the dry, shelf-stable "everything else" aisle — baking powder and frosting, powdered drink mixes (Kool-Aid, Crystal Light), gelatin and pudding (Jell-O), processed and dried eggs, honey, vinegar, baker's yeast, unpopped popcorn, dry soup mixes. Mature, defensive, staples-type.[3]

Why an investor cares: put together, the two make up a $43.7 billion U.S. manufacturing industry[1] that spans the full temperature range of processed food — from a refrigerated salad that must sell within days to a jar of honey that keeps for years. The two halves pull in opposite directions on almost every axis that matters — growth, margins, ownership, and how you buy in — so the interesting analysis is the contrast between them, not the blended average.

The headline for allocators: there is essentially no clean public pure-play in either child. The fresh half is dominated by private and foreign-owned processors, with one notable small-cap exception (Mama's Creations); the dry half lives as product lines inside diversified consumer-staples giants. Public-market investors reach the industry only indirectly; private-market investors (private equity, family offices, strategic acquirers, cooperatives) are where most of the direct ownership sits.

2. What's inside — the two child industries and how they differ

The whole point of this level is the split. Below is the side-by-side; the reconciliation is unusually clean, because 31199 is essentially the sum of exactly these two children (see Section 3).

How the two halves actually differ — the through-lines:

• Fresh vs. dry is the master variable. 311991 lives and dies on the cold chain: continuous refrigeration from plant to shelf, shelf life measured in days, a single temperature excursion can force a recall. 311999 is the opposite — dry powders and shelf-stable goods that are cheap to ship, slow to spoil, and forgiving on working capital. Nearly every other difference flows from this one.
• Growth vs. maturity. The fresh half rides two durable consumer shifts — convenience (fewer scratch-cooked meals) and the "fresh over frozen/canned" premium — and grows faster than the food industry overall. The dry half is a classic mature staple: defensive and cash-generative, but structurally low-growth, and its sweet legacy lines (sugary drink and dessert mixes) face slow erosion.
• Labor vs. capital. 311991 holds ~70% of the level's jobs on ~62% of its revenue — it is hands-on, line-labor-heavy assembly with average pay around $51,500. 311999 does more revenue per worker (~$520K vs ~$368K) on automated packaging lines at higher average pay (~$61,000), so it carries only ~30% of the jobs.[2][3] That shows up in the risk profile: labor availability and wage inflation bite the fresh half hardest; ingredient-commodity swings bite the dry half hardest.
• Private center of gravity, different flavor. Both halves are owned mostly outside the public markets, but differently. In fresh, the leaders are large private/foreign processors (Taylor Farms, Reser's, Bakkavor, Fresh Express) plus enormous captive production by grocers and foodservice that the code never counts — though a small-cap pure-play, Mama's Creations, has emerged. In dry, it's a fragmented field of family firms, farmer cooperatives (honey), and private-equity roll-ups — with the famous brands (Jell-O, Kool-Aid) sitting as minor lines inside giants like Kraft Heinz.

3. How big it is

Federal statistics for the industry as a whole (our ground-truth figures for this level):

A few things fall out of these numbers:

• The level is almost exactly its two children added together. Receipts ($27.1B + $16.5B = $43.6B), establishments (1,032 + 872 = 1,904), and payroll ($3.79B + $1.95B = $5.74B) all reconcile.[1][2][3] The firm count is the one place they don't simply add: 922 + 741 = 1,663, slightly above the level's 1,656, because a handful of firms operate in both children and are counted once at this level.
• Averages. Revenue per firm is about $26 million ($43.65B ÷ 1,656). Average pay is roughly $54,400 per worker ($5.74B ÷ 105,458) — modest, reflecting a largely hourly, line-labor workforce, weighted toward the fresh half. Sales per worker run about $414,000, but that blends the labor-heavy fresh half (~$368K) with the more automated dry half (~$520K).
• Combining the two halves makes the level look less concentrated than either child. The level's top four firms hold just 23% of revenue and its HHI is a very low 226.4 — well under the 1,500 line economists treat as "unconcentrated." That is lower than either child on its own (311991's CR4 is 31.4%; 311999's CR4 is 26.9%, HHI 301).[2][3] The reason is mechanical: the biggest salad maker and the biggest honey packer don't compete, so stacking two distinct sub-industries dilutes measured concentration. The single HHI badly understates real-world market power — within any one product (bagged salads, branded gelatin, honey), a few firms dominate. Read concentration at the child level, not here.

The undercount — important, and different for each half. The $43.65 billion counts only firms whose primary business is one of these two manufacturing codes. It misses a great deal, for two distinct reasons:

1. Fresh half — captive production. Grocery chains make enormous volumes of the same deli salads, sandwiches, and cut fruit in their own commissaries (counted under retail), and restaurants and foodservice make it too (counted under Sector 722, Food Services). FMI reported approximately $50.9 billion of retail-foodservice prepared-food sales in 2024.[4] Third-party researchers put the North American deli-prepared-foods market well above $100 billion[5] — several times the $27 billion the fresh manufacturing code records.
2. Dry half — a classification artifact. The branded gelatin, pudding, and drink-mix revenue booked by a giant like Kraft Heinz is counted under that company's primary code, not necessarily here. So the household value of "311999-type products" is larger than the $16.5 billion line suggests; commercial data providers peg that broader market nearer $35 billion.[6]

Treat $43.65 billion as the merchant-manufacturer slice of a much larger food economy — accurate for the standalone factories, but not a measure of how much of this food Americans actually eat.

4. The investable universe — where value concentrates

Bottom line up front: neither child offers a large-cap public pure-play, but for opposite reasons. In the fresh half, the leaders are private and the public options are diluted produce proxies — with one small-cap exception. In the dry half, the products are real and branded but embedded inside diversified staples giants. Where you look for value depends entirely on which half you want.

Fresh half (311991) — public exposure is limited; the leaders are private.

The real center of gravity is private and foreign-owned: Taylor Farms (~$7B, founder-owned; largest U.S. salad/fresh-cut processor)[10], Reser's Fine Foods (~$2B, family-owned deli salads)[11], Bakkavor's U.S. business (being divested after Greencore's Jan 2026 takeover)[12], Fresh Express (Chiquita), SK Food Group (9 North American locations, 2,000+ employees)[13], and Dole. To own the fresh half directly, you generally buy a private company.

Dry half (311999) — exposure through diversified consumer-staples equities.

For the giants, these products are a minor fraction of revenue. Post Holdings offers the largest disclosed egg-product exposure.[15] The actual category leaders are often private: Jel Sert (~1,000 employees; Wyler's, Royal, Otter Pops)[18], Sioux Honey (Sue Bee, the largest U.S. honey co-op)[19], Rose Acre Farms and Lesaffre / Red Star yeast (600+ U.S. employees)[20], Hometown Food (Pillsbury mixes, PE-owned). To own the dry half directly, you buy a private specialty maker, a co-op, or a co-manufacturer.

Read across: the fresh half is a private-equity / strategic-M&A game with public produce stocks and one focused small-cap (Mama's Creations) as routes in; the dry half is a defensive-equity game (buy the whole staples company) with a fragmented private small-business layer underneath.

5. How the money works

Both halves are commodity-conversion manufacturing — buy an agricultural input, transform and package it, sell the result, and defend a thin margin with volume and plant efficiency. But the economic levers differ:

• Capacity utilization is universal. Both run capital-intensive lines with high fixed costs; empty capacity destroys margin. In fresh, the lines are refrigerated processing and packaging; in dry, high-speed packaging of powders. Keeping lines full is job one in both.
• Input cost is the swing factor — but different inputs. Fresh economics track perishable produce and protein (lettuce, tomatoes, avocados, chicken), where spoilage and yield/"shrink" (how much of each head of lettuce reaches the pack vs. the trim bin) decide the outcome. Dry economics track storable commodities (eggs, honey, sugar, corn, cocoa, packaging film), where the question is whether you can pass a cost spike through to price before it eats the margin.
• Margins: thin everywhere, thinner and more volatile in fresh. Fresh-and-value-added gross margins run near single digits (Fresh Del Monte's ran about 9% in 2024; Mama's Creations reported ~25% gross but only ~4% operating)[7][8] — versus 30-40% for shelf-stable branded food. Dry goods sit in between: branded lines (Jell-O, Orville Redenbacher's) carry real pricing power; private-label / co-manufacturing lines (the TreeHouse model) compete on cost and reliability at very thin margins.
• Working capital splits the two. Days-long shelf life makes the fresh half a forecasting tightrope — overproduce and you scrap it, underproduce and you miss the sale. Dry goods are the friendlier profile: slow to spoil, cheap to warehouse, low waste. The flip side is low price per unit, so absolute profit per package is tiny and scale is everything.
• Contracts and private label matter in both. Much output — fresh and dry — is sold on contract to grocers and foodservice, often as store brand. Winning or losing a national retail program can swing a plant's volume dramatically.

Net: owners in both halves make money by buying inputs well, converting them with minimal waste, running expensive lines full, and locking in high-volume retail/foodservice contracts. The fresh half adds cold-chain logistics and spoilage as make-or-break variables; the dry half adds commodity passthrough and (for branded lines) a thin layer of pricing power.

6. What drives demand

Shared with the food economy generally: private-label growth (U.S. store-brand sales hit a record ~$271 billion in 2024, up 3.9%, with refrigerated/fresh-perimeter among the fastest-growing)[21]; retailer and foodservice expansion; and health/"better-for-you" reformulation that reshuffles which sub-categories grow.

Fresh half (311991) — a growth story:

• Convenience and time scarcity — fewer scratch-cooked meals, more grab-and-go; refrigerated sections keep expanding. USDA found that adults' reported consumption of grocery-store ready-to-eat foods rose about 26% between 2007–08 and 2015–16.[22]
• The "fresh" premium — consumers prefer fresh/refrigerated over frozen or canned and tie it to health.
• Independent researchers size the U.S. packaged-salad market alone near $14–15 billion in 2025, growing ~7-8% a year — faster than most of food.[2]

Dry half (311999) — a maturity story:

• Home baking cycles — baking powder, frosting, and mixes rise and fall with home baking (they spiked in the 2020-21 pandemic).
• Value and nostalgia — cheap staples (drink mixes, gelatin) are recession-resilient, but face a long-run health headwind against sugary, artificially-colored products.
• Foodservice and industrial demand — egg products, yeast, and dry mixes sold in bulk track the broader eating-out and food-production economy. USDA reports that 29.7% of eggs consumed in 2022 were consumed as egg products rather than shell eggs.[3]
• Honey supply dynamics — U.S. honey production fell to 134 million pounds in 2024 (down 4%), while imports hit a record 562 million pounds; domestic honey prices rose 5% to $2.69 per pound.[23]
• Forward wildcards — GLP-1 weight-loss drugs (Ozempic-type appetite suppressants) and sugar-reduction policy could dampen the indulgent end of the bucket over time.[3]

The dividing line: fresh demand is secular and rising; dry demand is defensive and roughly flat, with a sweet-legacy segment quietly shrinking.

7. Regulation

Food safety is the defining reality for both halves, and both share a common baseline with a similar carve-out:

• FDA baseline for most products. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates most output of both children under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which requires a written food-safety plan built on Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Controls (HARPC) and Current Good Manufacturing Practices (CGMP), plus labeling rules (Nutrition Facts, allergens). Sesame has been a federally designated major allergen since January 1, 2023.[24]
• A USDA-FSIS carve-out in each half — but for different foods. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) takes over for meat and poultry in the fresh half (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, HACCP)[2] and for eggs in the dry half — processed egg products fall under the Egg Products Inspection Act of 1970, which mandates continuous inspection.[3] So a plant making egg substitute is USDA-inspected while the pudding-mix plant next door is FDA-regulated.
• Fresh-specific: Listeria and the cold chain. Refrigerated ready-to-eat (RTE) food is among the highest-risk food categories. Both FDA and FSIS enforce a zero-tolerance standard for Listeria monocytogenes — any detection triggers a mandatory recall — and Listeria grows at refrigeration temperatures, exactly the fresh half's operating condition.[2]
• Fresh-specific: Food Traceability Rule. FDA's Food Traceability Rule is especially relevant to the fresh half because its Food Traceability List includes several fresh products. Compliance was extended to July 20, 2028.[2]
• Dry-specific: adulteration and standards of identity. Honey is a chronic target for "economically motivated adulteration" (cutting it with cheaper syrups); the FDA runs a dedicated honey-testing program — its FY25 round screened 102 samples using carbon-isotope analysis, and a separate 2022–23 survey of 107 imported samples found 3% violative for undeclared sweeteners.[25] Federal "standards of identity" govern what a product must be to use a name like "honey."
• Antitrust applies to both. Because scale drives economics, the largest deals draw scrutiny — the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) blocked Fresh Express (Chiquita) from acquiring Dole's packaged-salad business on concentration grounds, a signal that consolidation among the biggest makers will be policed.[26]

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

At this level the industry looks highly fragmented (HHI 226.4, CR4 23%)[1] — but as Section 3 warned, that blends two separate competitive fields. Read it child by child:

• Fresh (311991) — moderately concentrated at the top (CR4 ~31%, CR8 ~42%, CR50 ~77%), highly fragmented below, with three sets of competitors at once: national processors, retailers' own commissaries, and foodservice.[2] Active roll-up: Greencore's ~£1.2 billion acquisition of Bakkavor (completed Jan 2026, U.S. operations to be divested)[12]; Mission Produce acquiring Calavo (~$430M, 2026)[9]; Chiquita/Fresh Express buying Bonduelle's U.S. fresh-prepared business (2024). Produce companies keep pushing downstream into value-added/prepared to capture margin.
• Dry (311999) — competition plays out as parallel category duopolies and oligopolies (CR4 ~27%, HHI 301): Kraft Heinz owns branded gelatin and drink mixes, Conagra leads popcorn kernels, Sioux Honey leads packaged honey.[3] Consolidation runs through orphan-brand roll-ups (B&G Foods buying brands larger owners shed)[17] and private-label consolidators (TreeHouse) scaling contract manufacturing against branded incumbents.

Common threads: scale is the moat (cold-chain and food-safety systems in fresh; marketing, distribution, and retail slotting in dry); retailer bargaining power caps margins in both, since a few large grocers and clubs control shelf access; and there is an antitrust ceiling on how far the biggest makers can combine.

9. Risks

Shared across both halves:

• Input-cost volatility — the defining risk. Fresh: weather, disease, and crop failures move lettuce, tomato, and avocado prices sharply. Dry: the clearest recent case is eggs — an avian-influenza outbreak that began in 2022 killed more than 145 million U.S. birds and drove retail egg prices to a record ~$6.23/dozen in March 2025, squeezing processed-egg makers.[16] Wholesale egg prices can swing dramatically — USDA documented a move from $8.20 per dozen in February 2025 to $3.74 in April 2025.[27] Honey, sugar, cocoa, and packaging carry similar swing risk.
• Thin, volatile margins — single-digit gross margins in fresh mean small moves in produce, yield, shrink, or freight can erase profit; dry margins are steadier but still thin.
• Retailer concentration — dependence on a handful of large grocers and clubs (Walmart, Costco, Kroger) that control shelf access and can compress margins by pushing store brands. B&G Foods reports that Walmart alone represents ~31% of its company-wide sales.[17]
• Food-safety and recall risk — a Listeria/E. coli/Salmonella outbreak in fresh RTE food is an existential, not routine, event; allergen-mislabeling and honey adulteration are the dry-half equivalents.[2][3]
• Trade/tariff pressure — 2025 tariff actions raised input costs (food +2.8%, fresh produce +4.0%, plus steel/aluminum packaging)[28] and affect imported honey and inputs.

Fresh-specific: perishability/demand-mismatch (forecasting error is expensive); labor — a heavily immigrant, hourly workforce facing tighter enforcement and wage inflation, pushing operators toward automation.[29]

Dry-specific: secular decline in sugary legacy categories (drink mixes, gelatin) from health trends and GLP-1 drugs; and policy risk (sugar-reduction rules, food-assistance purchase limits, front-of-pack warnings, dye scrutiny) aimed at the indulgent end.[3]

10. How to invest and the outlook

The two halves call for two entirely different playbooks.

Fresh half (311991) — a private-market / M&A story with one public pure-play. The closest public exposure is small-cap Mama's Creations (MMMB), which manufactures refrigerated deli-prepared foods — but with material customer concentration and integration risk.[7] Beyond that, the options are diversified fresh-produce stocks where refrigerated prepared food is one line among many (Fresh Del Monte, FDP; the emerging Mission Produce, AVO + Calavo, CVGW platform; small-cap greens grower Local Bounti, LOCL).[8][9] Direct ownership almost always means buying a private company — founder/family processors (Taylor Farms, Reser's), PE-backed platforms, or carve-outs like Bakkavor's U.S. business.[10][11][12] The thesis is a roll-up / scale story: acquire regional processors, consolidate plants, add automation, win national private-label contracts, expand margin through utilization and logistics.

Dry half (311999) — a defensive-equity story. Public exposure runs through diversified consumer-staples equities (KHC, GIS, CAG, POST, THS, BGS, HAIN, plus cyclical egg bet CALM) — generally lower-growth, dividend-paying names valued on price-to-earnings (P/E), enterprise-value-to-EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization), and dividend yield. Post Holdings offers the largest disclosed egg-product exposure ($2.4B in fiscal 2025).[15] None is a bet on "311999" specifically; you buy the whole company. The private route is a fragmented small-business field — specialty mix makers, honey packers, egg-breakers, co-manufacturers, and orphan-brand PE roll-ups.

(Reserve any judgments on valuation multiples, dividend yields, or share prices for these specific tickers — neither child, nor the level, is a listed sector.)

Outlook (forward-looking):

• Fresh keeps outgrowing the food industry — convenience + fresh + refrigerated private label is a real, durable tailwind, and consolidation should continue creating both entry points and exits, within antitrust limits.[21][26]
• Dry stays mature and defensive — low-single-digit growth tracking population and food inflation; watch egg-cost normalization (a margin tailwind for egg-products makers if it comes), health/GLP-1 headwinds on sugary lines, and reformulation toward clean-label and higher-protein products.[3][27]
• Cost and labor pressure (tariffs, produce and commodity inflation, tighter labor) rewards the most automated, best-run, largest operators in both halves and stresses the small tail.[28][29]

Net: one industry code, two opposite investment cases. The fresh half is a structurally growing, operationally demanding, food-safety-critical business whose real ownership is mostly private — though a small-cap pure-play now exists. The dry half is a mature, cash-generative, defensive staple you mostly buy embedded inside larger companies. An investor should pick the half that matches the mandate rather than treat "31199" as a single thing — because on growth, margins, ownership, and route to entry, the average of the two describes neither.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau. 2022 Economic Census (receipts, firm count, CR4/CR8/CR20/CR50, HHI) and County Business Patterns, 2023 (establishments, employment, payroll), NAICS 31199. Ground-truth federal figures for this level. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census.html; https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/cbp.html
2. Investor primer — NAICS 311991, Perishable Prepared Food Manufacturing (child), synthesizing U.S. Census Bureau / IBISWorld definition, 2022 Economic Census, 2023 County Business Patterns, packaged-salad / prepared-meals market research, and company filings.
3. Investor primer — NAICS 311999, All Other Miscellaneous Food Manufacturing (child), synthesizing 2022 NAICS definition, 2022 Economic Census, 2023 County Business Patterns, SBA size standards, and company filings.
4. FMI (Food Marketing Institute). Power of Foodservice at Retail 2024 ($50.9B retail-foodservice prepared-food sales). 2024. https://www.fmi.org/newsroom/news-archive/view/2024/11/18/new-fmi-2024-reports-examine-grocery-shopping-trends-for-the-holidays-and-retail-foodservice
5. Market Data Forecast. North America Deli Food Market Size, Share & Trends. 2025. https://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/north-america-deli-food-market
6. Grata / IBISWorld. Market Overview: All Other Miscellaneous Food Manufacturing (NAICS 311999). 2024. https://www.ibisworld.com/classifications/naics/311999/all-other-miscellaneous-food-manufacturing/
7. Mama's Creations, Inc. Form 10-K (FY2026): $171.7M sales, ~25% gross margin, ~4% operating margin, customer concentration. 2026. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1520358/000162828026025068/mmmb-20260131.htm
8. Fresh Del Monte Produce Inc. Fourth Quarter and Full Fiscal Year 2024 Financial Results (net sales ~$4.28B; fresh & value-added gross margin ~9.3%; fresh-cut fruit $575M, vegetables $285M). 2025. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250224960898/en/
9. Progressive Grocer / Calavo Growers IR. Mission Produce to Acquire Calavo Growers in ~$430M Deal. 2026. https://progressivegrocer.com/mission-produce-acquire-calavo-growers-430m-deal
10. Haas News (UC Berkeley). Bruce Taylor: Building Taylor Farms Into $7 Billion. 2026. https://newsroom.haas.berkeley.edu/magazine/spring-2026/taylor-farms/
11. Reser's Fine Foods. Reser's Fine Foods Celebrates 75 Years as it Reaches $2 Billion Milestone. 2025. https://www.resers.com/news-item/resers-fine-foods-celebrates-75-years-as-it-reaches-2-billion-milestone/
12. Greencore Group. Greencore and Bakkavor unite to create leading convenience food business (~£1.2B; completed Jan 2026; U.S. operations to be divested). 2026. https://www.greencore.com/
13. SK Food Group. Company overview (9 North American locations, 2,000+ employees). 2025. https://www.skfoodgroup.com/about/
14. Wikipedia. Kool-Aid and Jell-O (Kraft Heinz brand ownership). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kool-Aid; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jell-O
15. Post Holdings. 2025 Form 10-K (fiscal year ended September 2025): $2.41B egg-product sales, 15% segment-profit margin. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1530950/000153095025000260/post-20250930.htm
16. CNN Business. Egg prices will be at a record-high for a while. 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/25/business/egg-prices-avian-flu-outbreak; Cal-Maine Foods / Echo Lake acquisition. https://investors.calmainefoods.com/news-releases/news-release-details/cal-maine-foods-closes-acquisition-echo-lake-foods
17. B&G Foods, Inc. 2025 Form 10-K (gross margin ~21.8%; Walmart ~31% of sales; Clabber Girl group ~$120M). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1278027/000110465926022961/bgs-20260103x10k.htm
18. Jel Sert Company. Our Story (~1,000 employees; Wyler's, Royal, Otter Pops). https://jelsert.com/pages/our-story; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jel_Sert
19. Sioux Honey Association Co-op. Our Story. https://siouxhoney.com/our-story/
20. Lesaffre Corporation. Lesaffre strengthens its presence in the United States (600+ U.S. employees). https://www.lesaffre.com/press-room/lesaffre-strengthens-its-presence-in-the-united-states/
21. Private Label Manufacturers Association / Circana. Private Label Sales Rose 3.9% in 2024 to Record $271 Billion. https://www.plma.com/article/private-label-sales-rose-39-2024-record-271-billion
22. USDA Economic Research Service. Charts of Note: adults' reported RTE food consumption 2007–08 vs 2015–16. https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/92916
23. USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. Honey Report, March 2025 (134M lbs U.S. production; 562M lbs imports; $2.69/lb price). https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/hony0325.pdf
24. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FSMA Final Rule for Preventive Controls for Human Food (HARPC; written food-safety plans; CGMP); Allergic to Sesame? Food Labels Now Must List Sesame as an Allergen (effective Jan 1, 2023). https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-modernization-act-fsma/fsma-final-rule-preventive-controls-human-food; https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/allergic-sesame-food-labels-now-must-list-sesame-allergen
25. U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA Releases FY25 Sampling Results on Economically Motivated Adulteration in Honey (102 samples); FDA Releases Report on Economically Motivated Adulteration in Honey (2022–23 samples, 3% violative). https://www.fda.gov/food/hfp-constituent-updates/fda-releases-fy25-sampling-results-economically-motivated-adulteration-honey; https://www.fda.gov/food/hfp-constituent-updates/fda-releases-report-economically-motivated-adulteration-honey
26. Progressive Grocer / U.S. Department of Justice. Fresh Express Abandons Proposed Acquisition of Dole's Packaged Salad Business (DOJ antitrust). 2024. https://progressivegrocer.com/fresh-express-new-owner-chiquita
27. USDA Economic Research Service. Charts of Note: Wholesale Egg Prices ($8.20/dozen Feb 2025 to $3.74 April 2025). https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/112677
28. Washington Center for Equitable Growth / Cognitive Market Research. Tariff policies in 2025 increased input costs (food +2.8%; fresh produce +4.0%; packaging up). 2025. https://equitablegrowth.org/
29. The Food Institute / Food Industry Executive. Labor Pains: Food Industry Braces for Leaner Staff; Why Food Manufacturers Are Building Contingent Workforces. 2026. https://foodinstitute.com/focus/labor-pains-food-industry-braces-for-leaner-staff-in-2026/