I think if you watch video of a massive meatpacking plant, you'll pretty quickly realize how hard it would be to track. At the commodity scale, basically no one in the supply chain other than the rancher seems to care where the meat comes from. And the brands (Tyson, Smithfield, etc.) only want consumers to care about the logo on the box.

Literally the canonical example of capitalism-as-meat-grinder.

Meat is already tracked to its origin. They can track a specific box to the farmer and supplier.

Anytime there would be a recall, they would include the lot number and manufacturer dates.

Source: I worked in meat packing and boutique butcher shops.

Edit: even things like ground beef from trimmings, we would write down every lot that went into it

Tyson and Smithfield are the worst two brands in the USA that you can get any meat from.

So you're saying that this type of regulation would force the food industry to start caring about whether their food comes from? That sounds like an argument in favor of it, not against it

trying to convert a massive meatpacking plan isn't step 1. it's too big a problem. that's top down. probably easier bottom up -- have a processing plant that only sources from ranchers that grass feed/finish, pasture raise, and slowly subsidize other ranchers to stop sending their product to massive meatpacking plants.

also the canonical example of a commodity. Basically the claim that all units are fully fungible.