Rendering Plant Network

Where the Prairie Sends Its Dead

The Darling Ingredients facility operates continuously in Lexington, Nebraska, one node in a network of rendering plants that stretches across the agricultural midwest. These facilities process animal mortality from farms, feedlots, and veterinary clinics across hundreds of miles of prairie.

The company’s own reports indicate they handle millions of pounds of raw material annually, transforming dead livestock into ingredients that appear in pet food, cosmetics, and industrial products. This is the invisible infrastructure that manages death in rural America.

Rendering plants cluster around centers of animal agriculture. Darling Ingredients operates facilities in Nebraska, Iowa, and Minnesota. National Beef Leathers runs operations in Kansas and Missouri.

Valley Proteins maintains plants across the eastern plains. The geography follows livestock density: where there are cattle feedlots, dairy operations, and poultry facilities, rendering plants emerge to process the inevitable mortality.

The USDA estimates that normal mortality rates in beef cattle operations run between one and three percent annually. In a state like Nebraska, with 6.8 million cattle, that means over 100,000 dead animals per year requiring disposal.