Beefy Business
Area meat processors see high demand
during COVID-19 pandemic
Food shortages at stores contributed to meat sales
(March 21) – Meat processing facilities were hit hard early on by COVID-19. Cases seemed to soar among workers in many large plants, forcing shutdowns and prompting empty grocery shelves as consumers feared a meat shortage, all the while driving prices upward.
Local processor John Edwards said things “skyrocketed” due to COVID-19. Edwards is co-owner of Trackside Butcher Shoppe in Campbellsburg, Ky. He and business partner, Chris Wright, have run this business for the last five years.
When the pandemic set in, “demand went through the roof,” said Edwards. “It happened in a couple of ways.”
In spring 2020 when people shopped the big chain stores, they found a shortage on the shelves and panicked, he said. “They looked for any other avenue to buy meat and other food.”
For that reason, business increased for small retailers like Edwards’, who also sells mostly beef and pork from his facility’s small retail store. He lives on a cattle farm in Milton, Ky., and processes cuts from his own herd for sale in his retail store. “People started looking directly to the farmer as well.”
His main business is in processing meat – beef, pork, lamb and goat – directly from and for farmers. “We harvest and package it. It’s USDA inspected.” Farmers bring their cattle to his facility, which is designed to be hassle-free for farmers delivering livestock.
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Photo by Don Ward Trackside Butcher Shoppe employees in Campbellsburg, Ky., ofen work in close quarters. |
“We have always stayed one to four months booked out,” he said, but now “We are booked out for over a year.”
He said the “demand has stayed strong,” for his processing business. Half of the farmers who bring him meat to process and package sell their own meat through local farmers markets and word-of-mouth. The “majority of my business is for production,” Edwards said. Roughly 2,907 animals were brought to his facility last year for harvesting.
The high demand for meat this past year has “made us take a second look at our small retail store,” said Edwards. Due to its growth over the past year, he is thinking of expanding “the retail side of it.” Before the pandemic, it had been “a secondary part of the business. We really hadn’t focused on it.”
Apart from the huge increase in demand for his services, Edwards has not seen or had to make too many changes due to COVID-19. He follows the strict CDC guidelines set for his business, even though “we clean and sterilize so much anyway.” He does check the temperature of his 25 employees when they come to work and “has added more people to meet the demand” caused by COVID, he said.
As a way to keep the employees he has, Edwards said he has been able to take advantage of the Payroll Protection Plan (PPP) that was made available to small businesses to help prevent layoffs. He also works closely with the University of Kentucky Agriculture Department on a regular basis to keep up to date on guidelines and procedures that will affect his business.
Meantime, the same level of growth in business is happening over in nearby Indiana.
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Edwards |
“We’re booked until 2022 on beef,” said Tim Morrison, owner of Pate’s Processing, a slaughtering and processing facility in Hanover, Ind. He’s currently handling 30 pounds of beef and 40 pounds of hogs per week. He stayed booked before COVID hit, processing 15 pounds of beef and 30 pounds of hogs per week. He is currently “at capacity.”
Morrison said he hasn’t made any major changes due to the pandemic, since he has always sanitized heavily. He does require customers to wear masks at the counter area, as well as social distance. Pate’s Processing handles “all red meats-beef, pork and some lamb,” he said.
He employs nine people and said, “We don’t have a big staff.” But there is plenty of business to keep the seven employees busy who actually work on processing the meat by cutting, chilling and packaging it. Morrison added, “We only shut down for two weeks a year.”
It was announced in November 2020 that the Indiana State Department of Agriculture awarded $4 million to 41 Indiana meat-processing businesses through the Indiana Meat Processing Expansion & Development Grant Program. The funding was allocated to offset the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on local and small meat-processing agribusinesses in Indiana.
Morrison was able to take advantage of this grant program that helped him purchase a cooler to improve the efficiency of his business. Pate’s Processing was awarded $97,700. The funding was made available through Indiana’s allocation of federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES).
Those who received the awards could use the funding in a variety of ways as long as it improved food supply resilience through promoting worker safety, expanding meat processing capacity and/or increasing slaughter. Like Morrison, many businesses used the grants to purchase equipment or modify their facilities for increased efficiency. Others used funding to train additional staff and purchase personal protective equipment. Those awarded the funding are Hoosier businesses with less than 500 employees.
In a press release that went out about the awards, Indiana State Dept. of Agriculture, Director Bruce Kettler said, “Meat processers are essential for our state, contributing more than $3.9 billion to our economy. It is vital we keep these businesses growing and operating safely.”
Morrison has downsized his retail facilities and currently has only one in Austin, Ind. He buys meat from local farmers to sell in the store.
He is working on a $5 million expansion for his slaughter and processing facility in Hanover. Late spring of 2022 would be the earliest it would open, he said.