The paper aims at analyzing the critical aspects of the meat supply chain, focusing on its weakest links, in particular, on the deplorable effects of the cost reduction policies imposed in the chain itself by the big retailers. As far as work organisation is concerned, the outsourcing phenomenon has ended up in the dock as a technique par excellence for cutting costs. The paper will dwell on the contractual forms of this phenomenon – “soccida” (agistment) in livestock farming, “contracting out” in meat processing - to verify its effects in terms of the growth of unsafe and poor quality work. Finally, the paper takes a critical look at the latest legislative interventions in the field of contracting and subcontracting, thus questioning the prospects for labour regulation in the meat sector