Saladero is a basic industry that produces

salted meat Salt-cured meat or salted meat is meat or fish preserved or Curing (food preservation), cured with salt. Salting (food), Salting, either with edible salt, dry salt or brine, was a common method of preserving meat until the middle of the 20th ce ...

such as

charqui Jerky is lean trimmed meat cut into strips and dried (dehydrated) to prevent spoilage. Normally, this drying includes the addition of salt to prevent bacteria growth before the meat has finished the dehydrating process. The word "jerky" derive ...

. It was one of the earliest industries of

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

and

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

after the

Argentine War of Independence The Argentine War of Independence ( es, Guerra de Independencia de Argentina, links=no) was a secessionist civil war fought from 1810 to 1818 by Argentine patriotic forces under Manuel Belgrano, Juan José Castelli and José de San Martín a ...

, benefiting from the availability of cattle in the

Humid Pampas The Humid Pampas ( es, Pampa Húmeda) is an extensive ecoregion of flat, fertile grassland of loessic origin in Argentina. It has a precipitation average of 900 mm per year, in contrast with the Dry Pampas to the west, which average less than ...

and the low technology and manpower requirements. Most of the production was sold to Cuba and Brazil to feed slaves. In time, it expanded into other areas, such as extracting the leather, horns and fat from cows (fat was useful for public lighting, soaps and candles). Saladero declined at the end of the 19th century, with the lowering numbers of foreign slaves (and thus the smaller demand for food for them) and the expansion of refrigeration techniques.

See also