Locat­ed on land pro­ject­ing into the Uruguay Riv­er west of the town of Fray Ben­tos, the indus­tri­al com­plex was built fol­low­ing the devel­op­ment of a fac­to­ry found­ed in 1859 to process meat pro­duced on the vast prairies near­by. The site illus­trates the whole process of meat sourc­ing, pro­cess­ing, pack­ing and dis­patch­ing. It includes build­ings and equip­ment of the Liebig Extract of Meat Com­pa­ny, which export­ed meat extract and corned-beef to the Euro­pean mar­ket from 1865 and the Anglo Meat Pack­ing Plant, which export­ed frozen meat from 1924. Through its phys­i­cal loca­tion, indus­tri­al and res­i­den­tial build­ings as well as social insti­tu­tions, the site presents an illus­tra­tion of the entire process of meat pro­duc­tion on a glob­al scale.