SO YOU WANT TO START A MEAT PLANT? A SHORT PRIMER ON WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

(SEPTEMBER 23, 2021) – Through the Local Food Systems Response to COVID project, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) partnered with the Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network (NMPAN) to develop a new resource outlining considerations for starting a new meat plant. A resilient food system requires a diverse group of meat processors when it comes to scale, services provided, and location. The pandemic has stretched small and mid-sized slaughterhouses and meat processors thin. The bottlenecks in parts of this system have encouraged many entrepreneurs and livestock producers to consider opening new meat processing facilities.

NMPAN’s website has a variety resources about what it takes to plan, design, and construct a meat processing facility, as well as how to run it efficiently and profitably. Those resources are summarized in this new brief along with advice from new meat plant operators

Interested in doing even MORE to help level the playing field for independent producers and processors? Please reach out and let us know you’d like to get involved with USCA’s Independent Beef Processing Committee.