Tallys from NFPA website, 2015-2019
Fires - Industrial, Utility, Defense, Agriculture, Mining: 2,953 (738 per year)
Fires -Manufacturing, processing: 5308. (1,327 per year)
NFPA mentions that about 25% of fires are traceable to arson.
The counts include way more than just food processing facilities, which makes them somewhat difficult to interpret as an answer to the question: "Are we under systemic attacks on our food supply".
Actuaries could answer that question with high confidence, given access to the source data. No such data or analysis has been made public. We have heard bland reassurances from insurance company consultants that "100 incidents" is not an indicator when we have 5,300 fires per year. That could be true.
My personal assessment is that there have been some opportunistic attacks by do-it-yourself Jihadis, or "Environmentalist" groups. They are not organized for repeating or sustaining those attacks and I am not sure there have been enough of them to move the indicator needles very much.
Food processing facilities are filled with dangerous fire conditions that require a skilled and diligent workforce to keep under control. I believe that workforce skills and disciplines have been declining (especially since the COVID lockdowns) and are a factor in the increasing losses.
The government does not appear to be investigating such matters at all.
Excellent. While that does not provide an exact answer, it certainly helps put things into better perspective. Thank you very much.
“...I believe that workforce skills and disciplines have been declining...”
Meritocracy is being rejected...