Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture

It takes a community: Riceville meat locker rebuilds after fire

Back to Leopold Letter Spring 2009

By LAURA MILLER, Newsletter editor

Merrill and Rose Angell are thankful for the support from their northern Iowa community in picking up the pieces after a fire destroyed their almost-full custom meat processing plant last October. They are breaking ground on a new $800,000 facility in May and hope to be open again by August or September.

But Merrill Angell's recovery process has relied on another community, sometimes called a community of practice. The Small Meat Processors Working Group, led by Iowa State University sustainable agriculture and rural sociology graduate student Arion Thiboumery and ISU Extension meat specialist Joe Cordray, has provided guidance that Angell could not get anywhere else.

The group formed three years ago to bring together processors, regulators, educators and business consultants to identify small meat processor needs and the resources to address those needs. The group also is part of the Value Chain Partnerships project coordinated by the Leopold Center.

"While we were trying to sift through the rubble, these people were all in the background trying to put together a plan and figure out what needed to be done," said Angell, who sent an e-mail to Thiboumery only days after the fire. "I did not know where to start, there are so many regulations and I was not insured for replacement by any means."

The Angells' business, County Line Locker, straddles the Howard and Mitchell county line in Riceville. The fire also destroyed a hardware store, which hit the community hard because two businesses were affected, Angell said.

Thiboumery asked several group members – a state meat inspector, two ISU Extension specialists and a community college advisor – to go with him to Riceville and help Angell consider his options. The first decision was whether to remodel an existing building or build new.

It just so happened that the working group was in the process of writing its second resource manual, Guide to Designing a Small Red Meat Plant (published by ISU Extension as PM 2077), to help plants meet various regulations and achieve necessary efficiencies. Thiboumery said the group had worked with an architect and state officials on the guide because so many of their members were interested in expanding or building new facilities.

"We're adapting one of the floor plan models in the book," Angell said. "We hope to be a USDA-inspected plant eventually, but right now we are looking at meeting the Iowa guidelines."

Thiboumery said helping people make connections within the small meat processing industry has been one of the goals of the working group.

"Meat processing is a heavily regulated industry and there has been a big knowledge gap between those people working in business development and the regulators," he said. “It was easy for small meat processors to slip through the middle of this gap.”

The group's first publication in 2007, the Iowa Meat Processors’ Resource Guidebook, explains the steps needed to build, expand, or upgrade a meat plant and the resources available for accomplishing each step. It includes information related to business planning and feasibility, rules and regulations, plant design and construction and labor. Iowa Meat and Poultry Inspection Bureau Chief Dr. Gary Johnson, a member of the working group, said the guide is a good reference for new meat processors as they prepare to work with regulators.

Angell said he has appreciated everyone's support, including 10 area producers who are investing in the new facility, and economic development groups in Riceville and Howard and Mitchell counties. The business, which he purchased 13 months before the fire at age 54, will survive.

"We've just been overwhelmed by the generosity in the community," he said. "Arion and the group have been a big part of this. I've looked to them for coaching and access to resources. It would have been really hard to do this without the working group."

Leopold Center linkages
The Leopold Center's Marketing and Food Systems Initiative funded a series of cost-accounting workshops for small meat processors as part of a 2007 competitive grant. The workshops were led by Iowa State University Extension's Center for Industrial Research and Service (CIRAS) and ISU Meat Science Extension.

A competitive grant that began this year is funding a feasibility study for the creation of a meat processing training program in Iowa through the community college system.

Funds from the Value Chain Partnerships project are supporting the Small Meat Processors Working Group's third publication, the Beef and Pork Whole Animal Buying Guide, published by ISU Extension (PM 2076). This consumer-oriented guide explains the many details of buying pork and beef as whole animals (or portions thereof). The guide contains information such as marketing terms, storage and handling recommendations, understanding meat inspection, and understanding meat weights (live vs. carcass vs. retail cuts), as well as common retail pork and beef cuts.

National linkages
The Small Meat Processors Working Group in Iowa is participating in the national eXtension network within the U.S. Cooperative Extension System. Supported by grants from the USDA Rural Development, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Heifer International, the Iowa working group is part of a new Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network that includes experts from 25 states working to help livestock farmers and ranchers who want to have meat processed to sell in niche markets, such as local, grass-fed, and organic.

Resources on the network include on-line Webinars, Ask an Expert, and e-newsletters [look for small meat processors]

Back to Leopold Letter Spring 2009