Critical mass.
That’s a high hurdle for many smaller processors who want to market their products into a regional grocery or restaurant chain or capture value for offal ingredients and hides.
Even smaller grocery chains require a relatively high volume of meat and poultry on a year-round basis to keep their cases stocked and their customers happy. That’s simply beyond the capacity of a smaller processor.
But what if…
…processors within a region got together to develop a “brand” that would include uniform production protocols (grassfed, organic, etc.), processing and quality standards, packaging and labeling. Those processors could create a joint venture, cooperative or other business structure to coordinate inventory control, marketing and delivery to a distribution center.
This isn’t a new concept. The Native American Agriculture Fund (NAAF) outlined this concept for tribal food producers five years ago in a report entitled Reimagining Native Food Economies. That report has been recently updated and is worth reading by any small processor who wants to access larger markets.
New technological developments provide valuable tools to help individual processors collaborate.
For example, USDA’s new Remote Beef Grading strengthens processors' ability to package and sell USDA Select, Choice or Prime products to a network of buyers. It can also help them offer feedback to their supplier-ranchers in providing consistent quality animals for processing.
Tools like the American Meat Science Association’s online Meat Locker database and the Agricultural Utilization Research Institute’s AVA artificial intelligence tool can help individual processors coordinate their processing, packaging and other services.
A collaborative approach could also strengthen the ability of individual processors to aggregate offal to provide the critical mass of material that would attract interest from pet food manufacturers seeking unique, U.S.-produced ingredients.
Flower Hill Institute is already working with Other Half Processing to explore the potential for this approach in sourcing hides to be marketed to high-end fashion companies that want to sell leather products made with hides from cattle and bison in regenerative production systems.
This type of collaborative marketing approach is challenging, but not impossible. Navigating these challenges could lead smaller processors to new markets, and higher profitability.
It’s worth exploring.