Nation’s meat supply chain receives $9.6 million investment
U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack recently announced the Biden-Harris Administration is investing $9.6 million across the country and taking several other steps to help farmers, ranchers, processors and rural businesses diversify the nation’s meat supply.
“USDA is putting the needs of farmers, ranchers and consumers at the forefront of the Biden-Harris Administration’s work to strengthen the resiliency of America’s food supply chain while promoting competition,” Vilsack said. “USDA has undertaken a department-wide approach to coordinate ways to deliver more opportunities and fairer prices for producers, to give people access to healthier foods, eliminate bottlenecks in the food supply chain and ultimately lower prices for consumers.”
Vilsack announced 25 new investments to increase independent meat processing capacity.
The department is awarding 23 Value Added Producer Grant program grants totaling $3.9 million to help producer-owned companies process and market new products. USDA is also providing guarantees for a total of $5.7 million in loans to two companies through the Food Supply Chain Guaranteed Loan Program using American Rescue Plan funding. This program supports new investments in infrastructure for food aggregation, processing, manufacturing, storage, transportation, wholesaling and distribution.
Through these two programs, USDA is investing in 25 projects in California, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
Below are some examples of how the funding will be used:
• Bottomland Prime LLC will use a $4.95 million Food Supply Chain Guaranteed Loan to acquire and expand Edes Custom Meats. Edes is a cattle meat processing and retail outlet in Amarillo, Texas. Bottomland Prime projects its business will include custom USDA-inspected processing for local producers and specialty markets, as well as local retail sales of beef cuts, sausage, jerky, pork and lamb. In addition, it will include wholesale markets through different convenience stores and cold storage services.
• In Kents Store, Virginia, Gillispie’s County Line Farm LLC is receiving a $44,000 Value Added Producer Grant to support the processing of pasture-raised chickens, beef cattle and hogs into individually cut and processed poultry, beef and pork products. The farm will sell the meat directly to retail consumers online and through farm sales. Gillispie’s also plans to hire new employees to assist with processing and sales labor and expand its marketing activities to reach a larger customer base.
• Todd Family Meats in Big Timber, Montana, is receiving a $48,173 Value Added Producer Grant to increase its production of packaged beef and lamb to meet growing demand. The family-owned company also will use the funds for marketing, HPJ.COM packaging and processing.
