Going Mobile
Co-ops operate traveling slaughter units to help grow local foods movement
By Stephen Thompson
Assistant Editor
imes are tough for
small livestock and
poultry producers. The
consolidation of the
meat industry has
resulted in the closing of hundreds of
slaughter and packing plants, and some
of the ones still in operation often don’t
cater to small, specialty or niche
producers. Many of these packers
require high minimum head counts for
slaughter, and they’re often too far away
to make trucking of relatively small
shipments of animals to them
economically feasible. In addition, high
feed and other costs aren’t matched by
the prices producers get for their live
animals.
At the same time, interest in buying
from specialty meat producers is
growing among consumers,
restaurateurs and retailers. Grass-fed or
organically raised beef and free-range
poultry are seen by some consumers as
both more flavorful and healthier than
conventionally raised equivalents. The
local food movement encourages
consumers to buy their foods from
nearby producers wherever possible.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) is supporting this movement
with its Know Your Farmer, Know Your
Food initiative, which promotes
farmers’ markets and other outlets for
locally grown foods.
The issue, then, for many small
producers, is not finding the market so
much as it is converting their live
animals into a product that can take
advantage of it.
A promising answer to this question
is the mobile slaughterhouse — a
slaughter facility mounted on a trailer
that comes to the farmer. Its advantages
are many, including low capital costs,
convenience, low processing costs and
the marketing advantage of being able
to say that your animals are slaughtered
on your own property. Mobile slaughter
units also don’t attract the same kind of
concern that brick-and-mortar facilities
arouse among neighbors — the “not-inmy-
backyard” problem.
Opportunity for co-ops
As a result, mobile slaughter units
have become a growing movement
across the United States. A number of
small service cooperatives have been set
up to take advantage of the new
technology.
The seed of the movement was
planted in the late 1990s at Broken
Arrow Ranch in Texas, a hunting
establishment where customers pay to
hunt exotic animals, such as African
antelope. The ranch developed a
slaughtering trailer to process the
carcasses.
Not long afterwards, a group of
livestock producers in northwest
Washington was looking for a way to
start producing meat for local markets.
They found the answer in Broken
Arrow’s trailer.
The group went to a local nonprofit
organization, the Lopez Community
Land Trust, which focuses on
sustainable rural development, for help.
The Lopez Trust in turn hired Bruce
Dunlop, a sheep farmer and former
chemical engineer, to develop a
slaughter trailer. Island Grown Farmers
Cooperative was formed to administer
the slaughter, cutting and packing
services. The initial membership fee was
$600.
The initiative was made possible by
new U.S. Food and Drug
Administration regulations under the
rubric of Hazard Analysis & Critical
Control Points (HACCP). Instead of
establishing rigid requirements, as with
previous approaches to regulation,
HACCP seeks to work with food
processors to develop appropriate plans
for facilities that meet sanitary rules and
other requirements. The new protocol
is a more flexible regulatory approach
that allows for innovation and unique
circumstances.
When finished in 2002, the mobile
slaughter unit was installed in a 32-foot
goose-neck trailer, at a cost of $150,000.
Financing was provided by private
donations and grants from various
agencies, including a $50,000 Rural
Business Opportunity Grant provided
by USDA Rural Development. The unit
is owned by the Trust, which leases it to
the cooperative. Dunlop estimates that
the trailer alone would today cost
$195,000, plus another $15,000 to
$20,000 for small equipment.
Facility meets all regulations
The mobile facility is fully compliant
with federal regulations, and all of its
products are USDA inspected. A small
office space is provided for the
inspector. The facility can slaughter up
to 10 head of cattle per day, at a cost to
the farmer of $105 per animal. Up to 40
sheep or 24 pigs can be handled daily, at
prices of $37 and $53 each, respectively.
Labor accounts for 70 percent of
operating costs. Because the unit was
financed with grants and donations,
there is no loan or investment to be
repaid; the fees need only cover
overhead, labor and similar costs.
However, Dunlop says that such a unit
could easily repay its purchase costs in a
few years.
Cutting and wrapping services are
provided by the co-op in a brick-andmortar
facility which can also produce
sausages. However, marketing is
handled individually by memberproducers.
The cooperative has six
employees, including two butchers who
handle slaughtering, and three meat
cutters. Dunlop has stayed on as a
member of the board of directors.
The slaughtering is done on the
producer’s property, usually in an open
field. The trailer carries a supply of
potable water for the slaughter process
and for cleanup. If it’s done often in one
location, the producer may also have to
provide a concrete drainage pad with a
sump for runoff.
If done only occasionally on a farm
or ranch, the operation can be carried
out directly on the grass. The animal is
killed on the ground and allowed to
bleed out. It’s then winched into the
trailer, cleaned, dressed and hung in a
refrigerated compartment in the trailer.
At the end of the day, the carcasses can
be transported to the cooperative’s
packing facility or the farmers can make
their own arrangements.
Offal and hides are taken away with
the truck; any other waste is composted.
Dunlop says composting works well.
“It kills the pathogens, it’s
inexpensive and there’s little odor,” he
notes. Except where production volume
requires a sump, the blood and water go
directly on the ground. Overall, he says,
operations have little environmental
impact, especially since the location of
the trailer can be changed with each
visit.
While making the mobile
slaughterhouse possible, the HACCP
approval process presented its own
hurdles, Dunlop says. “It was a shift
from approving everything ahead of
time to evaluating things as it went
along.”
The process requires a written plan,
which is then evaluated for problems
and modified. In the case of the new
slaughter unit, equipment and
procedures had to be tried out by
slaughtering a few animals at a time,
making changes until both the co-op
and the inspectors were comfortable
with the process.
Dunlop says that things were
complicated by the fact that inspectors
were just learning the new procedures
when the co-op sought approval. But,
he says that they were open to new
ideas and willing to work with the
cooperative to reach a satisfactory
conclusion. “Someone doing it now can
build on our experience,” he says.
“They wouldn’t have to go through all
that.”
Puget Sound co-op
boosts local sales
Not far away, another group of
Washington livestock producers took
advantage of Island Grown’s pioneering
work to establish their own processing
cooperative. Puget Sound Meat
Producers Cooperative has been
operating for just over a year, with a
roll of 60 voting members in nine
contiguous counties, and another 30
associate members.
Perry Schermerhorn, president of
the co-op, says the idea for the
cooperative occurred to Cheryl
Ouellete, a local hog farmer looking for
ways to add value to her product.
Selling butchered meat instead of live
hogs seemed the natural solution. But
the local slaughterhouse had closed,
meaning that the nearest processing
facility was hundreds of miles away in
Oregon.
With the big population centers of
Seattle and Takoma nearby, a market
for locally grown meats was assured —
if the meat carried USDA inspection
stamps. Island Grown’s approach
seemed like the answer.
The first exploratory meeting, in
February 2008, drew 80 local
producers, and with the help of the
Washington State Small Business
Assistance Center at Green River
Community College, a business plan
was put together and the idea pitched
to the Pierce Conservation District
board of directors, which approved
$200,000 in funds to build the trailer in
June 2008.
The cooperative itself was set up that
November, and in June 2009 the mobile
processing unit was delivered. Puget
Sound’s unit is based on the Island
Grown design, but larger. Built on a 45-
foot semi-trailer, it has bigger storage
facilities and the ability to process more
animals at a time.
The Puget Sound co-op works a
little differently than the Island Grown
co-op. Instead of making appointments
to slaughter at each customer’s farm,
the slaughter unit operates at three
venues on a weekly, or semi-weekly,
schedule. Producers transport their
animals to the most convenient
location. Members can purchase a
special class of stock to have priority in
scheduling. Two of the locations are on
members’ property; the third is
provided at no cost by a local
landowner.
The cooperative doesn’t offer cutting
and wrapping services. Those are
provided by private packing facilities in
nearby Rochester and Bremerton.
Schermerhorn says the cooperative
has the capacity for about 140 new
members; the slaughter unit currently
operates at about 25 percent of capacity.
Members each market their own
products. Some retail their products
directly at farmers’ markets and similar
venues. This sales strategy,
Schermerhorn says, offers the highest
margins: 50 to 100 percent.
Other producers have contracts to
provide high-quality meats to
restaurants, local food stores and even
to food co-ops. They typically garner
markups of 10 to 30 percent. Overall,
Schermerhorn says, “We get about a
50-percent net gain over marketing live
cattle.”
Montana co-op
focuses on poultry
Growers of four-legged livestock
aren’t the only producers who can use
mobile slaughter units. The Montana
Poultry Growers Cooperative built on
the experience of Island Grown, with
appropriate modifications. With the
help of Farms for Families, a nonprofit
that promotes locally grown foods, and
other organizations, including USDA
Rural Development’s Cooperative
Services, the co-op developed a mobile
slaughter unit for poultry.
Jan Tusick, the president of the
cooperative, recalls that the project had
its own snags and problems — most
involving licensing.
Processing poultry is simpler than
slaughtering sheep and cattle, and can
be done fairly easily by the grower with
the proper equipment, obviating the
need for employees to do the
slaughtering. Also, USDA inspection
isn’t necessary under two USDA Food
Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS)
exemptions: one for producers who
process 1,000 birds or less each year,
and another for those who process up
to 20,000 birds annually — provided
that certain requirements are met,
including proper sanitary practices.
The cooperative chose to operate
under the 1,000-bird exemption, which
is slightly less rigorous. Under that rule,
producers must own and raise their
birds and must process them on their
own property. They must sell directly
to customers; they are not allowed to
sell to resellers, such as grocery stores.
The effort faced a snag, however,
because Montana state law didn’t
recognize mobile slaughterhouses.
Grow Montana, a pro-local-food
lobbying group, successfully petitioned
the Montana state legislature to pass a
law in 2005 allowing inspection by the
state. After the state Department of
Livestock promulgated regulations in
accordance with the new law, the effort
was ready to go ahead.
It took several years to develop the
mobile facility, but finally, in June 2010,
it was approved and ready to go. It
consists of a small truck and trailer, with
the trailer containing the slaughter
facilities and the truck having chilling
and storage capabilities. The unit
travels around the state to producermembers,
who call the cooperative to
reserve its use.
The cooperative also offers training
in slaughtering in accordance with
government requirements. Meanwhile,
the cooperative is pursuing ways of
developing the market for locally raised
poultry, including customer education
and developing heritage breeds.
North Carolina co-op
promotes sustainable farming
Meanwhile, across the country in
North Carolina, different problems
have resulted in another approach to
slaughtering poultry. NC Choices is a
nonprofit initiative of the Center for
Environmental Farming Systems, itself
a program of several North Carolina
universities and the state’s department
of agriculture. Its purpose is to promote
“sustainable” local meat production,
and it provides networking and
technical assistance to develop markets
for locally grown pasture-raised meats.
Casey McKissick is the coordinator
of NC Choices and a small poultry
farmer in Old Fort, in the western part
of the state near Asheville. His
inspiration was to use mobile
slaughterhouses as a temporary measure
to help develop the market for locally
grown meats. “Around here,” he says,
“the small farmer is getting demand for
his poultry. People want to see where
their meat comes from. But taking your
birds to a modern slaughterhouse
means a round-trip of four and half
hours. That’ll just kill your profit.”
Some small local red meat processors
are willing to work with small farmers,
but none processed poultry. In any case,
McKissick says, “they’re ‘mom and pop’
operations that haven’t progressed from
the 1940s. They need to get up to
speed. If they don’t, the farmers won’t
come back.”
Thus, McKissick found himself
dealing with a chicken-and-egg
situation: existing small processing
facilities didn’t have the incentive to
upgrade their operations because there
was no market. But without decent
processing available, farmers had no
incentive to expand their production.
Trailer-mounted facilities seemed the
ideal solution. “North Carolina uses
federal meat-processing guidelines,” he
says. “And FSIS exempts the slaughter
of up to 20,000 birds at a time, if
proper sanitary guidelines are met.” He
says the North Carolina authorities
point out that there has never been a
complaint about the sanitary quality of
farm-processed meat and poultry in the
state.
McKissick’s approach was minimalist
compared to the Montana Poultry
Growers Cooperative. Under the
auspices of a local 14-member
marketing cooperative called Foothills
Family Farms, he obtained a grant of
$5,000 to construct an open-air poultry
slaughter facility on a farm trailer, using
non-commercial equipment. Members
and other farmers can rent the trailer
for $45 a day.
Farmers processed about $30,000
worth of meat the first year,” he says.
“And it took off from there.”
A local nonprofit is working to
construct a federally inspected poultryprocessing
facility, using USDA Rural
Development funding. “The difference
is the enormous amount of time and
effort you have to go through to get it
inspected,” he says.
In the meantime, McKissick is
talking to anyone who’s interested in
setting up a mobile facility, and his
minimal design has been already been
copied by other farmers.
“If I had my druthers, there’d be
about 10 or 15 of these things around
the state,” he says. “People from nearby
states, including Georgia, Florida, and
Tennessee, have shown interest, too.
But they say their state laws don’t
permit such an approach.”
McKissick thinks a similar approach
to red meat production would be more
complicated. “Slaughtering on the farm,
in a no-stress situation, that’d be good
for marketing,” he says. “But because of
the prevalence of red meat cut-andwrap
facilities in North Carolina, the
real opportunity for us is in exempt
poultry units.”
He, like many small meat producers,
is hoping mobile slaughter trailers may
be a way out of the livestock price
squeeze.
Assistance for new mobile slaughter efforts
Interest in mobile slaughter units is growing across the country. At least nine
poultry units and a similar number of red meat slaughter trailers are now
operating in various states. Seminars on the subject attract crowds. A recent
session held jointly by the Colorado and Wyoming state agriculture departments
drew 150 people from states as far away as New York, Ohio and California.
There are hurdles to overcome in starting a mobile unit, including regulatory
and permitting issues and financing. But much of the pioneering work has
already been done. Producers interested in starting such an operation can call
upon a range of information and assistance resources.
The Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network website,
www.nichemeatprocessing.org, offers a wealth of information on regulations,
design and construction, management, financing and other issues. The site
offers links to a number of “webinars,” including one led by Island Grown’s
Bruce Dunlop, on the various issues. It also offers a spreadsheet feasibility
calculator put together by Kathleen Painter, an analyst at the University of
Idaho.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service offers a “Mobile Slaughter
Compliance Guide” on its website for both red meat and poultry operations, and
has declared its interest in promoting small processors.
USDA Rural Development offers a number of financial programs that may be
helpful, and has extensive educational materials to help producers learn about
starting a cooperative. It can also offer technical assistance. To learn more,
visit: www.rurdev.usda.gov, or call your USDA Rural Development office and ask
to talk to a business and co-op programs specialist: 1-800-670-6553.
