Honest Meat

Breaking the Meat Processing Bottleneck: Part Two

After a farmer has put a lot of care and attention into raising a high quality animal (or at least one would hope), the butchering of that animal can either elevate or degrade the quality- it is the most critical step.  In order to sell retail cuts of meat a farmer must have it processed under USDA (United States Department of Agriculture, or as some folks call it- USDuh) inspection or in some states they can process under state inspection (which use USDA equivalent standards).  However, if a farmer plans to sell meat across state lines, they will need USDA-inspected meat cutting.  Having a USDA stamp on the meat’s label will give the farmer more flexibility in selling their meat- they can sell direct or wholesale to stores or restaurants with that stamp.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that meat is safer.  There are plenty of small, custom butcher shops that have impeccable food safety records.  But custom butcher shops don’t have the level of inspection that would allow a farmer to use them to process retail cuts of meat.  In fact, the custom shops often stamp the meat packages with “Not for Sale” on them.  I have seen farmers in a few states selling “Not for Sale” meat as so-called pet food.  But I doubt too many customers are buying $18/lb. pork tenderloin for their doggies, if ya know what I mean.  Of course, a farmer can always choose to do things illegally and process meat on their farms or in a custom facility, but it’s risky to run a business by breaking the law.  For personal consumption, friends and family, on-farm processing is the way to go (especially if they all come out to help!).

Nonetheless, finding a USDA-inspected butcher can be a frustrating endeavor. For illustration, we had only three USDA-inspected butchers to cut and wrap our pigs in the entire state of California (that we could find).  We tried all of them and were unhappy with the quality of all three.  After making a couple futile phone calls to the USDA to find another, we downloaded the latest list of USDA inspected meat plants for the state (see this link: http://www.fsis.usda.gov/regulations_&_Policies/Meat_Poultry_Egg_Inspection_Directory/index.asp ).  Unfortunately this directory is organized alphabetically by name of processor, instead of by state or by animal species they process, so you will get to waste lots of time wading through it to find facilities in your state.  We read through hundreds of pages to find around 20 potential butchering facilities in California and then spent another day calling each one of them. Turns out they all do specialty items like beef jerky, sausage, or meatballs, but only 1 out of 20 was willing to process whole pigs for us. Their employees had NEVER broken down whole pigs before because they were accustomed to working with 50lb. boxes of pork shoulder to make only a single product- meatballs.  We spent a day working with their butchers, explaining how we wanted things, and left them with detailed cutting instructions, crossing our fingers as we left.  Long story short, they messed up every single cut and we lost money trying to sell those inferior cuts at market.  They simply did not have the skills to work with whole animals, nor cut & wrap retail cuts for a farmer.

If you are a meat producer, there are all sorts of pit falls to be aware of when getting your meat cut & wrapped.  If you are a butcher, maybe this section will inspire you to communicate better with the farmers you work with and participate in educating both the farmer and consumers.  If you are a consumer, while you may never have to think about these things, understanding the logistics and the challenges might make you a better partner in the food system.  Here are some of the key lessons we have learned about butchering, both from our own experience as farmers and talking to other farmers around the country:

Truth in Advertising?

Family Farm.  Old Fashioned.  Gathered by hand.  What images do these phrases convey?  A small, quaint little farm complete with 1880s farmhouse, red barn, silo, and a big tree in front yard with a tire swing holding a cute little girl with pigtails?  How about ten 50 ft. by 300 foot long buildings each holding 10-20,000 laying hens pecking around at manure encrusted dirt and each other?  How about dozens of low-wage brown-skinned workers "hand gathering" the eggs?  Honestly (and that is what we are about here), the preponderance of feel-good words on egg cartons has to be some of the most flagrant violations of the concept of truth in advertising (which is only a concept since it is not enforced).  As egg producers ourselves, we get a lot of cartons recycled back to us from other companies (we only use the recycled cartons for CSA sales).  We chuckle whenever we are sorting cartons at the cr*p that is in print on these things. Here is some of the B.S. gleaned from those cartons and the companies websites: