https://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/investments-and-opportunities-for-input-on-meat-and-poultry-processing-infrastructure/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=investments-and-opportunities-for-input-on-meat-and-poultry-processing-infrastructure Supporting the economic and environmental sustainability of agriculture, natural resources, and rural communities. Sat, 20 Aug 2022 18:52:40 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://sustainableagriculture.net/blog/investments-and-opportunities-for-input-on-meat-and-poultry-processing-infrastructure/#comment-1054217 Thu, 12 Aug 2021 20:45:22 +0000 https://sustainableagriculture.net/?p=55141#comment-1054217 Here on the Front Range (near Boulder), Colorado, we are seeing a huge bottleneck in the regenerative meat production system around processing. There are no poultry processors within 3 hours, and very few choices for USDA processors for larger animals. What I’ve been seeing is that our one USDA processor that has served us in the past is struggling with regulatory hurdles in rebuilding after a fire, but also if they do have the limited capacity to take animals, they prioritize large producers who can drop off 4 animals a week or every other week and also accounts with grocery chains like Whole Foods. Small producers like us can’t get priority, but together, we can feed a whole lot of people. There are quite a few folks who have stepped up during the pandemic to become custom processors, but this complicates the sales of the meat. I think if custom processors had more funding to become USDA inspected and build out that infrastructure, we could reward and expand the existing talent and networks to make our meat processing system function smoother.

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