Abstract.  The article explores the process whereby regulatory initiatives in the U.S. on food safety and food workers enhance or inhibit the artificial separation between production and consumption. Contrary to what a mechanicistic interpretation of commodity fetishism may suggest, this separation must be continuously, and sometimes fiercely, constructed and reconstructed by the food industry through the enrollment and activation of ideological discourses, the media, technology, and strategically situated social networks. The process is conflict-ridden, highly contingent and extremely vulnerable to unexpected events such as recent outbreaks of foodborne diseases associated with consumption of hamburgers in the fast food restaurants. In order to illustrate relational and contingent character of production/ consumption boundaries, we will focus on the new meat safety regulations known as "HACCP" (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points system) and a recent meatpacking industry-wide immigration enforcement action called "Operation Vanguard." We will also argue that efforts to enroll or re-align networks and technologies in order to reproduce the consumption-production divide do not occur in a historical and political vacuum. In our case, the relevant historical context to consider are the successive waves of global and meat subsector restructuring and accompanying neoliberal discourse about free markets, consumer sovereignty, labor scarcity and privatization. Violence, whether to workers, animals, or communities, is often part and parcel of these restructuring waves. The highly industrialized character of the food system in the U.S., and the particular class, legal status and race/ethnic relations upon which it is built must also be taken into account. Finally, we caution that growing interest in agro-food studies in bringing consumption back in, may be leading to taking production relations out. Introduction.