Struggles over an ‘Old, Nasty, and Inconvenient Monopoly’

Municipal Slaughterhouses and the Meat Industry in Rio de Janeiro, 1880–1920s

Bibliographic Data

ID20749487
AuthorsMaria-Aparecida Lopes (corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume47
Issue2
Pages349-376
Publication date2015-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Latin American Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-216X • E-ISSN: 1469-767X
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022216x14001072
OpenAlexW2314215088
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited37

This paper examines the meat supply system in Rio de Janeiro from the late nineteenth century to the 1920s. For a period of time the city's monopoly over meat processing and retailing guaranteed a steady supply at predictable prices. However, at the turn of the century, ‘interlopers’, as municipal officials labelled those who attempted to introduce their product into Rio's market, began to question this century-old monopoly. Hence, for a relatively short period, Rio de Janeiro implemented a number of measures: curtailing the long-standing custom of clandestine slaughtering; establishing a centralised and somewhat regulated public abattoir system; and, finally, introducing meat-packing companies. This study considers these developments by undertaking a broader inquiry into how they affected per capita meat availability in Rio de Janeiro from the 1890s to the 1920s

Agricultural economics · Business · Economics · Economy · Market economy · Meat packing industry · Monopoly · Per capita · Political science · Product (mathematics) · Sociology · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Law

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