Packing is the industrial processing and packaging of food for sale, covering the operations that take raw produce, meat, or fish and prepare it for distribution. In meat packing plants, carcasses are broken into primal and retail cuts, trimmed, and packed under vacuum or modified atmosphere; in produce packing houses, fruit and vegetables are washed, graded, sorted, and boxed. The term carries historical weight from the Chicago meatpacking industry exposed by Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, which helped birth modern food safety law. Today’s packing operations run under HACCP plans with strict temperature control, hygiene zoning, and traceability systems that can track a pack back to the farm. Efficiency is relentless: line speeds, yield optimisation, and automation define competitiveness, while labour conditions and animal welfare remain live ethical issues.