Contacts:
Chelsea Bardot Lewis, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, 802-828-3360

Thursday, August 11, 2011

MONTPELIER – A lack of slaughter facilities is commonly cited as a key barrier to the growth of the local meat industry in New England. However, a new study led by a staff member of the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Foods and Markets shows that existing facilities are actually not operating at full capacity during most times of the year. The analysis showed that only 38 % of the total kill floor capacity of New England slaughter facilities is utilized on an annual basis. However, utilization of processing room capacity (where meat is cut and wrapped), was much higher, at 66-78%, demonstrating that it is processing, not slaughter, that may be presenting the bottleneck.

Facility owners attribute this underutilization to the seasonality of the industry, which they cited as the largest challenge to their businesses. Data showed that plants experience a surge in demand from September through December, when many producers want their animals processed to avoid winter feeding and housing. During the late winter and early spring, slaughter facility demand drops significantly. Survey data showed that labor availability offered another challenge to expansion.

“While these findings will not be surprising to those who have worked closely with the region’s slaughter facilities, we hope that they will provide advocates and policy-makers a more nuanced illustration of the state of the industry,” says Chelsea Bardot Lewis, Agricultural Development Coordinator at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture and the study’s lead author. “Deepening our understanding of the issues facing these plants will bring us closer to solutions to improve meat processing access.”

The study published online July 22 by the journal Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems also found that, were demand for local meat to increase to the extent that all of the large animal producers in New England wanted to process their animals within the region, existing facilities could slaughter 63–84% of all animals currently marketed, but could process only 29–43%. “The New England region will require additional infrastructure, particularly for processing, if regional meat production is to significantly increase,” says Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Chuck Ross. “However, we must expand capacity in a way that is sensitive to the issues of labor availability and demand seasonality expressed by existing slaughter facility owners.”

To this end, the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets (VAAFM) recently launched a grant program that provides matching funds for capacity expansion at meat slaughter and processing plants. VAAFM will also be working with the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development to develop a Skilled Meat Cutter Training Program. Additionally, the agricultural departments in the six New England states received funding through the John Merck Foundation and the Vermont Agricultural Innovation Center to identify institutional markets for regionally-produced ground beef. If successful, institutional demand should stimulate year-round throughput at regional processing facilities. “We hope that this research will inform effective policy and program development in Vermont and the rest of New England,” says Christian Peters, PhD, assistant professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and co-author of the study. “We need more data to guide the development of local and regional food systems”

This research was funded by the Vermont Agricultural Innovation Center and the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. Lewis, CB and Peters, CJ. “A Capacity Assessment of New England’s large animal slaughter facilities as relative to meat production for the regional food system.” Renwable Agriculture and Food Systems. Published online July 22. DOI:10.1017/S1742170511000305.