[Rail Paul]

There's an article in Thursday's NY Times about the surge of interest in organic, heritage breed turkeys. Even at $10 and up per pound, many growers are selling out their entire supplies. Even at these prices ($180 and up for a medium turkey) the growers say they're not making much money.

Organic feed, slow weight gains, small flocks, and inefficient distribution channels are part of the problem, but slaughterhouses are emerging as a bigger bottleneck. There just aren't many slaughterhouses who will cater to the small volume, independent grower. And, fewer that have the USDA imprimatur to allow shipping across state lines. The USDA regulates packing houses that process meat for interstate / internet sales. Meat intended for sale within a single state is handled by state inspectors.

Bill Niman, the pioneer farmer, agrees that the supply lines need to be improved, and he sees himself playing a role. Volume discounts for feed, slaughtering, etc are just part of the puzzle. Improving sales presence is another. Heritage Foods, mentioned in the article, is a clearinghouse which processes orders and shipping for small sausage makers, ham smokers, turkey growers, etc.

Frank Reese, a renowned breeder, has helped lead the crusade to save the heritage breeds and works with farmers associated with his Good Shepherd Turkey Ranch in Lindsborg, Kan., to market 9,500 turkeys a year. Most are sold on the Internet, through a company called Heritage Foods USA and shipped to buyers by overnight delivery.

Mr. Reese ran into problems this year when the slaughterhouse he had used shut, forcing him to truck his turkeys to Illinois and Ohio for processing, increasing his costs by about 10 percent.

“Our turkeys are very expensive, not because of the turkey but because of the processing and shipping,� he said. “The problem is the infrastructure to support truly honest-to-God sustainable agriculture is not there.�

Difficult to find

[wingding]

Conversations that I've had with Greenmarket purveyors about the expense and availability of farmed meat have always pointed towards the lack of licensed slaughterhouses in the Hudson Valley,and the expense of getting the animals to the few that exist....this article confirms what I've heard....the prices have gotten over my head...$50. for a pork shoulder?$25. for a small amount of lamb neck?

[wingding]

FYI,there is an article about this topic in the new issue of Edible Manhattan.

[Cathy]

FYI,there is an article about this topic in the new issue of Edible Manhattan.

link

[Rail Paul]

Thanks for the article, Cathy and Wingding.

This part jumped out at me:

For Peter Hoffman, owner of Savoy and Back Forty restaurants, the loss of butchering skills is a cultural tragedy. “When I was a kid, every supermarket had a butcher. Now that, in our infinite wisdom, we’ve figured out how to get rid of those guys, we’re left with a meat worker in an upstate meat-locker operation,” he says. “I don’t know how they learned to cut meat, but they didn’t learn it from pride in being a butcher.” Hoffman, who once upon a time spent his days off watching the artists at Florence Meat Market, is a mean hand with a knife himself and has taught his staff to break down the whole animals they get from a local farmer each week, saving prized cuts for Savoy’s dinner plates and grinding others into Back Forty’s unctuous burgers.

A million years ago, I worked in Newark NJ, and sourced a lot of our picnic meats like beef, lamb from a halal butcher on Orange Street. I remember the owner saying that he trained five high school kids each year as apprentice butchers, and each of them had their pick of jobs when they graduated. Good jobs with a future.

It would be great if he's still around and could train 50 - 100 kids a year for jobs that desperately need to be filled.

[Orik]

For Peter Hoffman, owner of Savoy and Back Forty restaurants, the loss of butchering skills is a cultural tragedy. “When I was a kid, every supermarket had a butcher. Now that, in our infinite wisdom, we’ve figured out how to get rid of those guys, we’re left with a meat worker in an upstate meat-locker operation,� he says. “I don’t know how they learned to cut meat, but they didn’t learn it from pride in being a butcher.� Hoffman, who once upon a time spent his days off watching the artists at Florence Meat Market, is a mean hand with a knife himself and has taught his staff to break down the whole animals they get from a local farmer each week, saving prized cuts for Savoy’s dinner plates and grinding others into Back Forty’s unctuous burgers.

Is it really likely that Savoy receives whole cows every week and butchers them, grinding everything (feet and tongue included, I suppose) but "prized cuts" into burgers?

[Sneakeater]

I don't know about Edible Manhattan, but I would guess that about 80% of what appears in each issue of Edible Brooklyn is sloppy tendentious overstated wishful-thinking bullshit.

[Anthony Bonner]

I don't know about Edible Manhattan, but I would guess that about 80% of what appears in each issue of Edible Brooklyn is sloppy tendentious overstated wishful-thinking bullshit.

so you are saying you aren't a fan?

(I only see edible East End regularly and I assumed it was a giveaway ad sheet - to the point that I once walked out of schmidt's with one w/o paying.)

[Orik]

Conversations that I've had with Greenmarket purveyors about the expense and availability of farmed meat have always pointed towards the lack of licensed slaughterhouses in the Hudson Valley,and the expense of getting the animals to the few that exist....this article confirms what I've heard....the prices have gotten over my head...$50. for a pork shoulder?$25. for a small amount of lamb neck?

To put this in perspective - you can buy a whole lamb from a small organic farmer in Minnesota and ship it to New York via air for a total of 30% less than what you pay Karen. About half of the difference can be attributed to slaughterhouse costs for pigs and sheep.

[Anthony Bonner]

Conversations that I've had with Greenmarket purveyors about the expense and availability of farmed meat have always pointed towards the lack of licensed slaughterhouses in the Hudson Valley,and the expense of getting the animals to the few that exist....this article confirms what I've heard....the prices have gotten over my head...$50. for a pork shoulder?$25. for a small amount of lamb neck?

To put this in perspective - you can buy a whole lamb from a small organic farmer in Minnesota and ship it to New York via air for a total of 30% less than what you pay Karen. About half of the difference can be attributed to slaughterhouse costs for pigs and sheep.

why then aren't people opening slaughterhouses then? Is it just that utilization is so much higher in MN and you'd never get enough volume around here for any reasonable scale plant? Is a stand alone slaughterhouse noxious in some way so people won't allow it?

Or is a big part of that cost differential the lower costs of raising the sheep itself?

[Rail Paul]

Operating a slaughterhouse is very regulatory intensive work. Meat inspectors are there continually, if you're under federal regulations, sampling virtually everything that gets cut or processed. I suspect the state inspections are a little less onerous, as they're reported to be somewhat cheaper to run.

Slaughterhouses / abattoirs are often mentioned by name as examples of prohibited uses in many zoning codes.

ETA: One excellent slaughterhouse is Green Village Packing Company in the southern section of Chatham Township / Harding. Their retail store is open to the public on Friday and Saturday, and they do a lot of contract slaughter for farmers in the region. This used to be farm country, now the area is multi-million dollar estates.

Although they will process meat for farmers who raise their cattle by organic rules, once it goes through their shop it loses "organic" status.

This post has been edited by Rail Paul: 06 December 2009 - 08:41 PM

[wingding]

Conversations that I've had with Greenmarket purveyors about the expense and availability of farmed meat have always pointed towards the lack of licensed slaughterhouses in the Hudson Valley,and the expense of getting the animals to the few that exist....this article confirms what I've heard....the prices have gotten over my head...$50. for a pork shoulder?$25. for a small amount of lamb neck?

To put this in perspective - you can buy a whole lamb from a small organic farmer in Minnesota and ship it to New York via air for a total of 30% less than what you pay Karen. About half of the difference can be attributed to slaughterhouse costs for pigs and sheep.

Details on who this farmer in Minnesota is,please.....and what do you think that the rest of the price difference encompasses?

[wingding]

Operating a slaughterhouse is very regulatory intensive work. Meat inspectors are there continually, if you're under federal regulations, sampling virtually everything that gets cut or processed. I suspect the state inspections are a little less onerous, as they're reported to be somewhat cheaper to run.

Slaughterhouses / abattoirs are often mentioned by name as examples of prohibited uses in many zoning codes.

ETA: One excellent slaughterhouse is Green Village Packing Company in the southern section of Chatham Township / Harding. Their retail store is open to the public on Friday and Saturday, and they do a lot of contract slaughter for farmers in the region. This used to be farm country, now the area is multi-million dollar estates.

Although they will process meat for farmers who raise their cattle by organic rules, once it goes through their shop it loses "organic" status.

I'm Speculating that the cost of building a slaughterhouse from the ground up that meets all USDA and state requirements is steep,and possible profits from this business are very long term,just for starters...

[Rail Paul]

Two recent items on small scale slaughterhouses. One observer describes the sustainable, small farm meat problem this way" there's a good supply of people raising cattle on small farms, and there's a good supply of restaurants and customers willing to pay good money for that meat. The pinch in this hourglass is the lack of licensed slaughter facilities." The problem for organic growers is amplified dramatically.

Christine Muhlke of the NY Times recently visited a mobile slaughterhouse, which visits farms, and dispatches steers, processes the meat, and stores the scraps. It makes the rounds in NY state, complete with its own USDA inspector.

The other article is from a farmer in Virginia's Shenandoah valley, who laments the rules laid on small scale slaughterhouses. Forcing small slaughterhouses to follow all the detailed rules imposed on large facilities will end badly, he argues.

From the fight to save small scale slaughterhouses:

The most recent extinction event occurred at the turn of the millennium, when small and very small USDA-inspected slaughter and processing plants were required to adopt the costly Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) food safety plan. It has been estimated that 20 percent of existing small plants, and perhaps more, went out of business at that time. Now, proposed changes to HACCP for small and very small USDA-inspected plants threaten to take down many of the ones that remain, making healthy, local meats a rare commodity.

The intent of HACCP is to prevent contamination of meat by harmful pathogens. Plant HACCP plans are approved and overseen by the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the inspection arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. On March 19, 2010, the FSIS published a draft guidance document on HACCP system validation, outlining new rules which would institute regular, year-round testing of all meats, whether or not problems have been identified. The proposal recommends testing for testing's sake, and it will cost small plants tens of thousands of dollars, perhaps even hundreds of thousands, every year. The financial burden appears great enough that this will destroy much of the remaining community-based meat processing industry, which is enjoying a renaissance and creating jobs.

Soon to be extinct?

This mobile kill facility travels around NY state, providing licensed slaughter services to farms.

“We had no models to follow,” Snyder said. “We were trying to miniaturize what is a very complex process and still keep it able to be legal on the road. It’s so well choreographed in there. It’s like the Rockettes: you can’t step out of line because you’ll bump into somebody’s saw.”

Yes, you will. The kill trailer is 8 feet wide and 53 feet long. In that space a cow, lamb or goat is stunned, killed, bled, skinned and eviscerated. The organs are rolled into the adjoining inedible parts trailer, to be composted or picked up by a renderer for disposal. The carcass is sawed in half and washed with a lactic-acid solution before it’s moved to a chilling compartment. Later, it will be transferred to the connecting refrigerated delivery truck, which can drive off to the nearest “cut and wrap” facility, or butcher. During the entire process, a U.S.D.A. inspector — in the Eklunds’ case, a ponytailed woman with a warm smile — stands in the kill trailer.

A Movable Beast