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From Convenience to Commitment: Securing the Long-Term Viability of Local Meat and Poultry Processing

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  • Consumer demand for local food, including local meat and poultry, has risen in recent years. Meat and poultry processors are essential links in local meat supply chains. To sell meat, farmers need access to appropriately scaled processing facilities with the skills, inspection status, and other attributes to prepare these products safely, legally, and to customer specifications. Farmers and others suggest that limited processing infrastructure restricts the supply of local meat and poultry. At the same time, existing small processors often lack the steady, consistent business required for profitability. We analyze this multifaceted problem and identify fundamental causes, drawing on a cost analysis of local processing at three scales. We use case studies of seven successful local and regional processors to illustrate strategies and solutions that may be adopted by others. We conclude that business commitments between processors and farmers are critical to mutual success: farmers commit to providing consistent throughput of livestock to process, and processors commit to providing consistent, high-quality processing services. This commitment, supported by coordination and communication between processors and their customers as well as along the entire supply chain, is essential to the persistence and expansion of local meats. We also describe five collaborative efforts around the country involving public and private sector partners who aim to expand opportunities for local meat marketing by providing support and technical assistance to meat processors and their farmer customers.
  • Keywords: poultry, local food supply, meat, meat and poultry processing, consumer demand
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  • Gwin, L., & Thiboumery, A. (2013, June). From Convenience to Commitment: Securing the Long-Term Viability of Local Meat and Poultry Processing. 1-54.
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  • The research for this report was funded by the Economic Research Service of the U.S.Department of Agriculture, Oregon State University, and Iowa State University. The reportdoes not reflect the views of USDA.
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