IBP, Inc.

IBP, Inc., formerly known as Iowa Beef Processors, Inc., now Tyson Fresh Meats, is now an American meat packing company based in Dakota Dunes, South Dakota, USA. IBP was the United States' biggest beef packer and its number two pork processor until it was acquired by Tyson Foods in 2001 for $3.2 billion USD in cash and stock. In order to reflect the company's multiple operations, the company changed its name to Iowa Beef Processors, Inc. in 1970. After the company expanded operations to pork and other areas, Iowa Beef Processors, Inc., became IBP, Inc.

The original IBP features prominently in Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation as the company that closed down the Chicago meatpacking district as a result of its industrial practices. Set up in 1960 by Currier J. Holman and A.D. Anderson, it opened its first slaugherhouse in Denison, Iowa, and eliminated the need for skilled workers. In 1967, IBP introduced boxed beef and pork which were vacuum packed and in smaller portions. It was a new option during that time when the traditional method of shipping product was in whole carcass form. The boxed meat also saved energy and transportation costs by eliminating the shipment of fat, bones and trimmings.

When workers in the IBP plant in Dakota City went on strike in 1969, Holman and three top executives held secret meetings with Moe Steinman, a 'labour consultant' with close ties to La Cosa Nostra, in New York who helped to end the New York butchers' boycott (in support of the meatpackers' strike). After a lengthy investigation of mob involvement in the New York City meat business, Currier J. Holman and IBP were tried and convicted in 1974 for bribing union leaders and meat wholesalers.