Mobile processing may meet a key need of livestock producers
Consumer demand for local, humanely raised and pastured red meat has never been higher. Producers have both the desire and capability to grow into and meet that demand. So why is it so hard to connect these consumers and producers?
While no doubt exacerbated by COVID-19, bottlenecks in the meat supply chain existed far before 2019. The pandemic absolutely revealed cracks in the foundation of our country’s meat processing infrastructure, but what is the real issue?
The simple answer: major consolidation within the meat processing industry over the past two decades.
The Meat of the Matter
In 2002, small- to mid-sized processing facilities made up 79 percent of the market share in the meat processing industry. However, by 2018, a whopping 53 percent was held by just four multinational companies. Industry revenue almost doubled over those 16 years, expanding from $123 to $217 million.
While this gargantuan oligopoly was enjoying historic profits, the overall number of slaughtering plants in the U.S. shrank by 70 percent since 1967. This saga of consolidation, loss of skilled agricultural labor and forgotten connection with our food is, in my opinion, one of the greatest national tragedies of our time.
Judith McGeary discusses the many dangers of the existing meat industry oligopoly in-depth in her excellent article for the February 2022 issue of Acres U.S.A. These dangers were never more clearly on display than during the pandemic, during which “the dominant meat-packers function on a profit-before-all-else approach that is primed for collapse. As massive meat-packing plants were forced to close or slow their operations because of illnesses (due to the terrible working conditions that help drive profits), not only did grocery store shelves go empty, but the farmers who sold into those chains found themselves without alternatives. In many cases, the corporations directed farmers to destroy chickens and hogs, with millions of pounds of meat going to waste.”
What McGeary recognizes is that this clear consolidation of the meat processing industry, along with workforce issues for both processing and inspection personnel, has created a bottleneck within the processing supply chain that effectively keeps producers from growing and consumers from eating what they want.
Silver Bullet or Siren Call?
Against this backdrop, with the support of a USDA Local Food Promotion Program planning grant, our team (myself; Rachel Blatt — director of Research and Technical Assistance for the Council of Development Finance Agencies; Rachel Tayse — consultant with Seeding Resilience; and the Appalachian Center for Economic Networks) undertook an effort to determine if the concept of “mobile” meat slaughter and processing represents a possible solution to this supply-chain issue in Ohio and Central Appalachia.
As of this writing, there are no mobile units currently operating in Ohio for either red meat or poultry. This is almost certainly due in part to an oft-repeated and strongly voiced rumor parroted by literally everyone we initially talked to: that “mobile slaughter isn’t legal in Ohio.” Land grant university specialists, extension educators, industry professionals and even processors and inspectors agreed that “you can’t do that here.” The problem was that no one could point us to the regulation that said so, and it didn’t seem right or fair that this possible solution would so quickly be removed from consideration.
And so, the project sought to explore the issue through a multitude of avenues, including an electronic Needs Assessment Survey, site visits to existing and start-up mobile units, in-person interviews with producers, consumers and industry professionals, as well as two stakeholder summits. Over our 18-month effort, the team vigorously evaluated both the limitations and possibilities that a mobile slaughter and processing unit presented.
I don’t suppose it will be a surprise to anyone that the ultimate answer to the question “Silver Bullet or Siren Call” was … it depends.
Needs Assessment Survey
We distributed our survey in the summer of 2021, and the respondents — 61.6 percent consumers, 34.9 producers and 3.4 percent processor, representing 50 out of 88 counties in Ohio — provided the following key takeaways:
- Consumers showed a strong preference for local meat, stating that supporting both local farmers and the local economy was the highest value to them. Additionally, transparency in the food chain, superior taste and a personal relationship with their farmer were rated highly. Interestingly, preference for certifications like organic ranked extremely low, with consumers showing a much stronger preference for pasture-raised and non-GMO growing practices.
- Producers represented 13,413 acres of Ohio farmland. Given an extensive list of possible challenges with processing, the three most impactful were significant wait times for slaughter dates, long distances to processors, and managing the logistics of having multiple processors. Most agreed that they could and would send more animals to market if there were fewer barriers.
- Only eight small-scale processors responded, despite direct outreach to 300 processing facilities — likely indicative of the very issue we were exploring. When asked what prevented them from serving more customers in the area, they indicated they were either operating at full capacity or experiencing a lack of qualified employees. Interestingly, no processor considered the possible introduction of a mobile slaughter unit to the region as a negative; in fact, they listed it as one of the most impactful possible solutions, alongside collaborative cold storage.
Our survey indicated a clear need for more convenient, affordable and available red-meat processing. A mobile slaughter and processing unit was viewed by all as a positive, beneficial solution to the processing bottleneck.
Site Visits
Bay Area Ranchers Co-op (BAR-C) is one of the nation’s newest mobile units, starting operations in February of 2022. They are located in Marin County, California, and chose a “permanent mobile” solution for processing because their county’s land-use codes expressly prohibit a brick-and-mortar slaughter facility.
BAR-C designed a custom handling facility featuring a pull-through unloading dock, animal handling pens designed by Temple Grandin, an industrial lift to move carcasses from the outside kill floor into the mobile unit parked onsite, and a custom rail for unloading carcass halves into a separate cold storage unit for cut/pack after initial cooling. BAR-C’s decision to use a mobile slaughter platform had little to do with the mobility benefits. With the mobile unit being parked, the incentive is “more about producer members gaining priority in scheduling as well as reducing the distance traveled to a brick-and-mortar facility” according to Board of Directors President Kevin Maloney. He says that “most producers are looking at traveling 70 miles for goat/lamb slaughter, 180 miles for beef and more than 250 miles for multi-species options.”
Our team also visited Island Grown Farmers Co-op, near Puget Sound in Washington State. Ranchers raising their livestock on the many small islands in the area had to rely on ferries to transport animals across the waterways — a high risk due to adverse weather, scheduling, time and cost. A mobile unit solved that problem, allowing the slaughter to come to the farm. The original unit is still in use today, serving ranchers all over the Pacific Northwest — sometimes even staying overnight to minimize travel time to some of the more remote farms.
After traveling to see both of these operations, our team was struck by several themes. It was clear that a mobile unit worked best when solving a specific problem. There also seemed to be an inherent advantage to a cooperative structure of management. While there were some additional infrastructure requirements for the farms — wastewater handling, offal removal/composting, slaughter-appropriate headgates, etc. — we could easily envision a mobile setup being created at most working farms.
We also repeatedly heard that state-level regulation in no way restricts USDA regulated units — further challenging the rumor that a mobile unit was “illegal in Ohio.”
Finally, it was notable that those involved with a mobile unit vastly preferred it over brick-and-mortar. From the inspector on-site, whose dedicated position assigned to the mobile unit was highly sought after, to the slaughterers themselves, everyone agreed that the variety of workplaces and the physical connection with the farm were highly desirable.
Findings
With the site visits completed, and after multiple phone calls and messages, we were finally able to speak directly with the Ohio Department of Agriculture’s (ODA) District Supervisor of Meat Inspection. His immediate response was that “mobile slaughter units are totally legal in Ohio, as long as they are inspected by either ODA or USDA.” How many entrepreneurs, financiers, non-profit organizations and farmers have been duped and deterred by that rumor we’ll never know — but no longer!
While our impressions of mobile slaughter and processing have remained positive, some very real challenges have also surfaced. There is a requirement for some additional on-farm infrastructure to make slaughter work, including wastewater and offal management. The logistics of scheduling farms, the number of animals, follow-on cold storage and processing almost certainly require a dedicated person to accomplish these tasks. Lastly, despite the high level of employee and inspector satisfaction we witnessed, mobile slaughter and processing doesn’t immediately or inherently address the ongoing employee retention and inspector workload issues that continue to plague slaughter facilities today.
On the flip side, mobile slaughter and processing seems to hold several unique possibilities. This truth was especially apparent when mobile benefits were leveraged to solve a specific problem (geography, zoning, land use, etc.). With a price tag somewhere in the $200,000 range, mobile units aren’t cheap, but they still represent a fraction of the cost of purchasing an existing brick-and-mortar facility. This might make them attractive for a start-up venture, proof of concept, or expansion opportunity for an existing slaughterhouse.
Most compelling to consumers and producers alike, on-farm slaughter approaches the closest thing we humans can do to kill and eat meat humanely. Studies have found that cortisol (aka, stress) negatively affects carcass quality. Temple Grandin’s facility design is famous because of her emphasis on working with animal behavior in an effort to avoid stress on livestock.
However, very little attention has been paid to applying this concept to the transport portion of our meat-eating logistics. Livestock lose 1 percent per hour of body weight due to transport stress — and this is regarded as an unavoidable accounting variable on a producer’s balance sheet. Meanwhile, the consumer-driven mandate for humane animal slaughter only continues to grow and find its voice. Both in terms of animal welfare and the farmer’s financial bottom line, mobile slaughter and processing appears to have multiple carcass quality benefits that are at this point largely unexplored and undefined.
Ultimately our team determined that, while mobile slaughter and processing doesn’t represent a “silver bullet” to the meat processing bottleneck, it absolutely deserves a place at the table for policymakers, financiers, farmers and entrepreneurs.
To that end, our team will be creating several fact sheets sharing our in-depth conclusions, as well as completing a feasibility study and business plan for a prospective mobile unit. These tools will be released on our website (acenetworks.org/lfpp) and sent to our email listserv. If you are interested in receiving those products and keeping in touch, you can sign up at bit.ly/3rwCT3x.
Paul Dorrance is a consultant with Pastured Providence and is the author of Farming without Losing Your Hat.
