Big Meat’s Ties to USDA Top Official Revealed

Just before her appointment to the Trump administration, Mindy Brashears held too many professional roles to enumerate. It was getting to be a bit much, even for her, she admitted. “I have many titles. I keep saying I need to get rid of some of these and they just keep adding on,” she said on a podcast. Her primary job was as a professor and director of the International Center for Food Industry Excellence at Texas Tech University. But she also held a wide range of advisory and consultant positions across the meat industry — the very industry she is now tasked with regulating at the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Brashears now serves as the USDA’s Under Secretary for Food Safety, the highest-ranking food safety official in the United States government. One of her key responsibilities is leading the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the agency that oversees the safety of the nation’s meat and poultry supply.

Financial disclosure records indicate that in 2025, Brashears owned up to $1 million in shares of Bottomland Prime, a Texas beef processor. She also served on advisory boards for the Meat Institute’s Protein PACT, Boar’s Head, Claxton Poultry Farms and the International Stockmen’s Education Foundation, while providing consulting services to Chiefline Red Angus and Nebraska Beef — to name just a few of her overlapping meat industry ties.