It began with a 15-liter hand-cranked stuffer. 

That’s where Maarten Van Zoeren of Simla Frozen Food Locker in southeastern Colorado pins the birth of his meat processing business.

Maarten came to the United States in 1990 at the age of 15 when his parents immigrated from the Netherlands to the small eastern Colorado community of Simla. They bought a frozen food locker there and began processing local meat.

Someone once said, “Meat processing isn’t rocket science; it’s more difficult.”

Smaller meat processors have certainly been navigating challenges in recent years that would vex the brightest aerospace engineers. Coming out of the pandemic, a severe slaughter capacity shortage threatened the viability of many ranchers. Then, just as more slaughter capacity began to emerge, Mother Nature brought on a drought that—along with screwworm and other factors—has reduced the nation’s cattle herd to the lowest level in more than a decade. And byproduct disposal is a persistent problem that keeps smaller processors at a competitive disadvantage.

Five years ago, the companies bringing “plant-based meat” to market were predicting the end of animal agriculture. Investors agreed and flooded the start-up ventures with seemingly limitless cash. JBS, Tyson and other large meat processors began to hedge their future by establishing new meat alternative ventures. 

At Expo West, the country’s largest natural products trade show, Beyond Meat, Impossible Burger, Meati, and other companies dominated the trade show floor with booths trumpeting the health and environmental benefits of their offerings. 

Receiving a grant award notification likely seems like a hard-fought victory, worthy of celebration.

Yes, celebrate! Then, get ready to face the key challenges of managing that grant. 

Reporting requirements are only one landmine that can trip up a grant recipient. Experts in breaking down a beef carcass may get flummoxed when trying to distinguish between an SF 424 and an SF 270, much less filling out those forms. Then, there’s the challenge of learning the online Payment Management System.  

The Annual Meat Conference, held in March each year, draws thousands of processors, retailers, consultants, and others from across the nation. The Big Four packers, executives from Walmart, Kroger, and other major retailers, are well represented at the conference. But the audience also includes a host of smaller processors, distributors, and retailers.

They come for networking, glimpses into new products, and information on the commodity outlook for beef, pork, and poultry. But mostly, they come for the unveiling of the latest Power of Meat Report.

This year didn’t disappoint.

A 78-year-old processing business in Millen, Georgia is taking on new life, thanks to Jarrod and Becca Creasy.

Jarrod grew up on a farm not far from Millen, where Fries Frozen Food meat processing had been operating since 1948, while Becca grew up in central Florida in an agricultural family. After getting married on September 20, 2014, they began using Fries to process the beef they stocked in their own freezers and sold to others. As they dropped off an animal for processing one day, the owner said, “You two ought to buy this business.”  

The humanization of pets has exploded over the past few decades as Fido moved off the front porch and into the bedroom (or on the bed), and Fluffy traded chasing mice in the barn for curling up on the couch.

This trend has translated into how pet parents view the food and treats they feed their companion animals. Some consumers want their companions to follow the same diet as they feed the rest of their family. However, pet nutritionists warn that dogs and cats still have unique digestive systems that require different nutrition than humans.

Professional trainers at the Savory Institute, Holistic Management International, and other regenerative agriculture organizations often stress, “You can’t monitor what you don’t measure.” 

When talking with ranchers seeking to improve management of their land and herds, the trainers say that the same adage is even more critical for meat and poultry processors.

The unique characteristics of meat and poultry processing make it difficult—and sometimes impossible—to use standard manufacturing monitoring tools to measure performance. Most commercial manufacturing enterprises transform components into finished products. Processors start with live animals and then break down the carcass into potentially hundreds of products.

Heywood Provisions is flying high these days. 

Literally.

The small further-processing enterprise tucked into an industrial park in urban Atlanta has grown exponentially since Patrick Gebrayel first opened for business in 2011.

After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, Gebrayel worked under legendary French Chef Jean-Louis Palladin in Washington, D.C., and then moved to Atlanta. Frustrated by the lower quality sausages he was working with at an Atlanta-area country club, he set out to create a business specializing in unique, high-quality meat and value-added products while supporting local livestock farmers.

Sometimes, it takes a village to expand a meat processing enterprise.

That was evident recently in the northwestern Colorado town of Craig as Deborah Fitch of Fitch Ranch Artisan Meats guided the mayor, city council members, economic development officials, lenders, and builders through the processing plant she and her husband, Cam, have steadily grown since purchasing it in 2022.

How do lawn mower repair, meat processing and pet product manufacturing all fit together?

Just ask Vernon Beechy of Beechy’s Custom Meats in Shipshewana, Indiana.

On June 17th, Flower Hill Institute's Regional Director of Technical Assistance Chris Roper made a site visit to Barnsdall Meat Processing in Barnsdall, Oklahoma which made him stop and reflect on how fortunate we are after seeing the damage left from two deadly tornadoes that hit the small community within a five week period. 

It began with a 15-liter hand-cranked stuffer. 

That’s where Maarten Van Zoeren of Simla Frozen Food Locker in southeastern Colorado pins the birth of his meat processing business.

Maarten came to the United States in 1990 at the age of 15 when his parents immigrated from the Netherlands to the small eastern Colorado community of Simla. They bought a frozen food locker there and began processing local meat.

A 78-year-old processing business in Millen, Georgia is taking on new life, thanks to Jarrod and Becca Creasy.

Jarrod grew up on a farm not far from Millen, where Fries Frozen Food meat processing had been operating since 1948, while Becca grew up in central Florida in an agricultural family. After getting married on September 20, 2014, they began using Fries to process the beef they stocked in their own freezers and sold to others. As they dropped off an animal for processing one day, the owner said, “You two ought to buy this business.”  

Heywood Provisions is flying high these days. 

Literally.

The small further-processing enterprise tucked into an industrial park in urban Atlanta has grown exponentially since Patrick Gebrayel first opened for business in 2011.

After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, Gebrayel worked under legendary French Chef Jean-Louis Palladin in Washington, D.C., and then moved to Atlanta. Frustrated by the lower quality sausages he was working with at an Atlanta-area country club, he set out to create a business specializing in unique, high-quality meat and value-added products while supporting local livestock farmers.

Professional trainers at the Savory Institute, Holistic Management International, and other regenerative agriculture organizations often stress, “You can’t monitor what you don’t measure.” 

When talking with ranchers seeking to improve management of their land and herds, the trainers say that the same adage is even more critical for meat and poultry processors.

The unique characteristics of meat and poultry processing make it difficult—and sometimes impossible—to use standard manufacturing monitoring tools to measure performance. Most commercial manufacturing enterprises transform components into finished products. Processors start with live animals and then break down the carcass into potentially hundreds of products.

Shortages of trained workers continue to be one of the significant challenges facing smaller processors operating in relatively remote areas.

Fortunately, many higher education institutions of all sizes are working to address those needs, in part with resources that were made available through USDA’s National Institute for Food and Agriculture.

On an early Sunday morning in mid-June, members of several area Tribes, along with leaders of The Nature Conservancy (TNC), World Wildlife Fund and other organizations gathered around the Intertribal Buffalo Council’s (ITBC) mobile processing trailer at a TNC ranch south of Rapid City, SD to participate in the cultural harvest of a buffalo bull that had been felled by a sharpshooter in the pasture minutes earlier.

Someone once said, “Meat processing isn’t rocket science; it’s more difficult.”

Smaller meat processors have certainly been navigating challenges in recent years that would vex the brightest aerospace engineers. Coming out of the pandemic, a severe slaughter capacity shortage threatened the viability of many ranchers. Then, just as more slaughter capacity began to emerge, Mother Nature brought on a drought that—along with screwworm and other factors—has reduced the nation’s cattle herd to the lowest level in more than a decade. And byproduct disposal is a persistent problem that keeps smaller processors at a competitive disadvantage.

Five years ago, the companies bringing “plant-based meat” to market were predicting the end of animal agriculture. Investors agreed and flooded the start-up ventures with seemingly limitless cash. JBS, Tyson and other large meat processors began to hedge their future by establishing new meat alternative ventures. 

At Expo West, the country’s largest natural products trade show, Beyond Meat, Impossible Burger, Meati, and other companies dominated the trade show floor with booths trumpeting the health and environmental benefits of their offerings. 

Receiving a grant award notification likely seems like a hard-fought victory, worthy of celebration.

Yes, celebrate! Then, get ready to face the key challenges of managing that grant. 

Reporting requirements are only one landmine that can trip up a grant recipient. Experts in breaking down a beef carcass may get flummoxed when trying to distinguish between an SF 424 and an SF 270, much less filling out those forms. Then, there’s the challenge of learning the online Payment Management System.