The Death of the Local Butcher, Part 3: What’s the Solution?

Guest Opinion by Ben Michael of the Russell County Butchery, LLC—Part 3 of 3

The lynch pin for much of the meat system is the slaughterhouse, since that is the highest-risk area for contamination to occur, and the starting point of the USDA Inspection program. HACCP plans for slaughter are more complex than those for post-slaughter processing plans due to this increased risk for contamination. Small processors wishing to source and use locally-raised animals have no choice but to pursue state or USDA Inspection if they want to take advantage of retail exemptions for further processing and individual sales. Without a Grant of Inspection for slaughter, anyone wanting to start a retail butcher shop will be forced to purchase animal carcasses or parts from another facility, or, as is more often the case, from a boxed-beef wholesale company. There are presently 1095 USDA slaughter businesses in the United States, with 16 in the state of Alabama; numbers that are surprisingly low for the nation with the largest consumption of beef worldwide. Concerns over the intensive logistics of large commercial operations, as well as the potential for severe disruptions in the supply chain should a problem arise (i.e. COVID 19), have caused a renewed interest in developing robust local options to create resiliency for smaller communities. With many consumers returning to sourcing food from local farmers, the need for more small and very small slaughterhouses is higher than ever.

A slaughter Grant of Inspection is difficult to obtain, especially as a new venture, because the inspection process is largely dependent on the plant’s infrastructure and equipment meeting sanitation guidelines prescribed by the USDA. While there are some turn-key solutions (as with Friesla corporation), building a new plant from the ground up would cost anywhere from $500,000 to $2 million for a barebones facility with a minimal footprint. Although some low-interest lending options and grants exist, a new processing business would be hard-pressed to generate the income required to maintain operating costs and finance the startup expenses. Additionally, many wanting to start a new venture as a butcher shop have little-to-no experience in the slaughter process precisely because it has been largely centralized through commercial agriculture, and family-owned butcher shops have been put out of business. Becoming proficient at slaughter, in a way that meets the USDA guidelines for sanitation, is a difficult goal to achieve for new butchers.

There are fewer farmers raising beef to slaughter size, preferring to take advantage of feedlot or sale-barn pricing for yearling steers. Many farmers don’t understand the processing regulations and guidelines, resulting in a lack of interest for finishing out their beef. Additionally, with the difficulty in obtaining and maintaining a USDA Grant of Inspection, there may not be an inspected facility within a reasonable distance of where the farmer is located. The time and cost associated with transportation in areas that inspected slaughter is not readily available increase the challenges for these farmers. Ironically, most beef cattle producers still go to grocery stores to buy hamburger for dinner.

One potential solution to the regulatory problems for small and very small processors is the Processing Revival and Intrastate Meat Exemption (PRIME) Act. The PRIME Act helps to relieve processors and farmers of some of the regulatory pressure that the USDA has created, although plants would still be required to operate as a custom exempt facility with monthly inspections, at a minimum. It would allow for custom exempt products to be sold to individual consumers by the farmers who raise the animals or the businesses that process them. Relaxing the regulations could potentially encourage more farmers to finish out their beef, being able to receive retail prices for a packaged steak, instead of a live-weight wholesale price for a herd of stockers. Passage of the PRIME Act would expand the opportunities for new ventures and some small businesses who may already be custom exempt processors, but may be too intimidated to pursue USDA inspection.

While the custom exempt regulations that currently exist allow for animal shareholders to get their share processed for their own use, it limits the marketability for farmers and increases the workload for processors to track all the animal shareholders as required by custom exempt regulations. Meat from custom exempt animals can not currently be sold “by-the-cut”, prohibiting retail sale, and restricting the marketability for farmers and small processors to expand their sales opportunities. Although current retail exemptions give small processors and local butcher shops a fair amount of leeway to offer a variety of products to their customers, these exemptions are dependent on state or USDA Inspected slaughterhouses to provide the carcasses for the products to come from. Without local slaughterhouses, there aren’t any current viable options for small-scale farmers wishing to raise their own cattle to result in finished beef for their community.

Another option would be to completely exempt small and very small processors from USDA regulations completely. These exemptions could be a way to encourage new business ventures to get started without having to climb the mountains of red tape that presently exist. This would be challenging to work out in a way that isn’t torpedoed by corporate meat-packing companies, since it would infringe on their operations and bottom line. Many states already allow this with chicken processing, and there are multiple federal poultry processing exemptions that allow for up to 19,999 birds to be harvested annually by smaller operations. 

A third option would be to place the inspection responsibility on local health departments. Most of the products from small and very small processors is sold and consumed within a very close proximity to the physical location of the plant. Local agencies could inspect slaughter and processing plants in similar ways that they inspect grocery stores or restaurants, reducing the need for USDA personnel to be on-site. The local nature of very small processing plants provides intrinsic motivation for the business to ensure sanitation practices are maintained. One of the things we routinely do at our facility is offer customers and farmers a tour of everything from the holding pens to the meat room, helping to educate individuals on what we do and why we do it.

Our farmers and customers are a big part of our business. While we primarily exist to glorify God through harvesting animals for meat, secondarily we want to philosophically change the way agriculture is practiced in our community. We want farmers to have sustainable businesses that are profitable locally, removing some of the middle men, fuel surcharges, and corporate profits from the Big Ag model. We want customers to have the best possible product from people they know, not a conglomerate of an untold number of animals raised in confinement operations and excessively medicated against unnecessary diseases. We want to create resiliency in our community through local cooperation and interdependency, rather than the faceless structure of national meat logistics operations.

Here’s how you can help today. Find a local slaughterhouse or butcher, recognize the value in the products they offer, and support their businesses financially instead of chain grocery stores. Ask beef farmers or custom exempt processors how you can buy a beef share to stock your freezer. Contact your legislators and urge them to support the PRIME Act when it is re-introduced. Ask them to fight for small and very small processors in their states to be able to get out from under the burden of current regulations and reform the USDA FSIS system. Local butchers may be considered a thing of the past, but they are also crucial to the success of local agriculture in the future.

This is the third and final article in this series. To read Part 1 and Part 2, click the links.

Opinions do not reflect the views and opinions of ALPolitics.com. ALPolitics.com makes no claims nor assumes any responsibility for the information and opinions expressed above.

Editor’s Note:  Earlier this month, ALPolitics.com reached out to Ben Michael, co-owner of the Russell County Butchery about the closure of that facility. Unfortunately, after three years of operation under increasingly difficult circumstances, he and his partner have decided not to attempt to reopen the Butchery. This deprives Seale and surrounding areas easy access to small, local-owned butchery services and products.

Mr. Mitchell was kind enough to submit this three-part series to help ALpolitics.com readers understand the difficulties small operations like his face.

With some 85% of all beef processing in America being owned and controlled by only four massive corporations—two of which are foreign-owned, as Michael discusses—this is cause for concern for those who are care about the sources and practices used in putting food into stores and on our tables.

This is more than just an issue of big corp/big government domination or overreach. It cuts to the heart of the MAHA movement, and has implications both for national security and small farms and businesses everywhere.

ALPolitics.com thanks Mr. Michael for this information, and we look forward to more from him in the future.