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Mobile slaughter facility could help niche marketers
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP)--For Kris and Bill Martinell, getting their cattle from pasture to plate is quite an undertaking--one that involves shipping the animals 21/2 hours from the family ranch in southwest Montana to the nearest government-inspected slaughterhouse. "If we could have them butchered at our place," Kris Martinell said, "it would save a trip and keep them from being jostled." That could soon happen under a measure recently passed by the Montana Legislature that essentially would bring the killing floor and a state meat inspector to the ranch. The measure authorizes state inspection of mobile slaughter units, trailer-like rigs that can be hauled from ranch to ranch. For years, similar rigs have been used by custom slaughterers for producers who want meat for their own families. But having onsite inspection of the killing process would allow niche-market ranchers like the Martinells to sell their beef to restaurants, stores and other customers across the state. Currently for farmers and ranchers to sell their meat to other Montana consumers legally, animals must at least be killed at plants with onsite state inspectors. To sell meat across state lines, producers must slaughter and process their animals at plants with federal inspectors. There are federally inspected slaughter plants in Montana, but none in Wyoming, and long distances to a plant can be a big obstacle for small producers trying to tap more lucrative specialty markets in bigger cities, supporters of mobile units say. Having animals slaughtered on the ranch eliminates that barrier, they say, and can help producers command a higher price for their products. "The buzz word for this would be value added," said Martinell, whose family raises grassfed, natural beef near Dell. The concept is being looked at in several states, including Wyoming, where one official believes a federally inspected mobile unit could be operational within a year. At least one rig for killing domestic livestock is being used by a farmers' cooperative in the remote San Juan islands of Washington state. A federal inspector has to catch a ferry from the mainland to accompany the mobile unit. Not long ago, sheep from the island had to be taken by ferry to a slaughterhouse. The mobile slaughter program began largely as a function of necessity, said Bruce Dunlop, president of Island Grown Farmers Cooperative, in Bow, Wash. "We're very small farmers in the scheme of things, and for us to survive as farms, we have to sell our finished product to the customer," he said. "We can't just sell the commodity product to the market." Farmers pay a fee to have their animals slaughtered at their place, Dunlop said. Animals are killed and bled outside the long, white trailer. Once the carcass is inside, the doors are shut and it gets skinned and eviscerated, trimmed and cut and rinsed and refrigerated, he said. Because the mobile unit is held to the same standards as a bricks-and-mortar slaughter plant, a federal inspector oversees each step. The meat goes to a U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected plant for further processing. Farmers use the waste for compost. Greg Sherman, a circuit supervisor and veterinarian with the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service, said that as with any slaughter plant, problems with the mobile unit have come up. Early on, he said, there was an issue with the time it took to load a carcass into the trailer. But, Sherman said, they have been addressed. "They had to experiment and make it work," he said. Business and industry leaders in Wyoming were impressed by the mobile unit in Washington, but it alone may not be practical in Wyoming, a landlocked state with large ranches and vast stretches of open space, said Jim Bennage, who is involved with the project for Sheridan College. One of the options being considered is a companion "shuttle" trailer that could haul carcasses of animals killed in the country to a facility for cutting and wrapping, he said. Sheridan College, in northern Wyoming, could serve as that site initially and is seeking government approval of its on-campus processing site, he said. "We want to instigate that process, but we don't want to be in the commercial meat business," said Bennage, chair of the school's Agriculture and Technical Careers Division. A study conducted last year on the feasibility of a mobile unit in Wyoming found broad support, but Bennage admits, it didn't measure the depth of producers' commitment. Other specifics, including funding and ownership, have yet to be decided. A unit in Wyoming could kill over 1,200 animals a year, said Renee King, a meat and food science instructor at the school. By comparison, large U.S. slaughterhouses can kill that many--and then some--in a day. She and Bennage say a mobile unit would cater to small-scale, niche marketers and wouldn't change how most ranchers in the region do business. Cattle industry leaders and custom slaughterers agree. Because of limited feeding and slaughter capacity in the area, most cattle headed for slaughter from the two states are shipped out of state. But for ranchers like the Martinells and their neighbor Wally Congdon, who want to limit the stress on their cattle, a mobile slaughter unit would be a welcome alternative. And Congdon doesn't mind that the option would only allow him to sell those cuts in Montana. "Part of the concept of local and sustainable agriculture is to not ship your product hundreds of miles if you can help it," he said. Date: 5/4/05
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