USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service's new criteria for allowing young chicken slaughter plants to increase their line speeds from 140 birds per minute to 175 bpm are likely to prompt a lawsuit from food safety and worker protection groups.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6, 2017 – The nation’s small meat processors are confronting a new market reality: an increasing demand for healthier local meat options coupled with the often-labyrinthine set of regulations that accompanies it.