Small Slaughterhouses Gain Ground, Promote Transparency

For 40 years, small-scale meat processing plants have been in decline as the industry has continued to consolidate. Massive, corporate-owned slaughterhouses producing huge volumes of meat now dominate the field.

But according to Arion Thiboumery, a researcher at Iowa State University, over the last half-decade niche meat processors have begun to regain a foothold in the market, reports the Washington Post.

All meat produced for sale must be slaughtered at a USDA-inspected facility, a requirement that makes it difficult for small facilities to stay in business. USDA requirements are quite specific and can be cost-prohibitive. Farmers have long been asking for reform that makes it easier to maintain small-scale meat processors.

Innovative developments in the field, such as the mobile slaughterhouses pioneered by Lopez Island Farm’s Bruce Dunlop, combined with the skyrocketing demand for meats produced locally and ethically are bringing a resurgence of small slaughterhouses.

Some of these small facilities are positioning themselves to be the antithesis of their industrial competition in more ways than just size. Corporate slaughter facilities are famously (or infamously) closed—the only way consumers can catch of glimpse of conditions inside is from footage shot by smuggled cameras. Many small-scale meat processors emphasize openness and information sharing as a way to show that, unlike the industrial behemoths, they have nothing to hide.

"It is a slaughterhouse, but I'm not going to shrink from showing who we are and what we do," Joe Cloud, owner of Virginia’s True & Essential Meats, told the Post. "The industry has walled it off and is in a defensive crouch. I want to be different."

And he sure is different: School classes have taken field trips to his kill floor.

There’s an interesting idea for some legislation: Require that every slaughterhouse accept school field trips to the kill floor. Pass that law and you'll certainly see industrial slaughterhouses clean up their acts fast, saving us all from a lot of illness and danger. Any slaughterhouse clean and orderly enough to accept classes of children is a slaughterhouse clean and orderly enough not to contaminate its meat.

Photo: JelleS via Flickr