Iowa's producers look to other markets

Future pork: Organics may hold key

Natural foods, one of the newest and fastest growing sectors in the food industry, could be the answer for struggling Iowa pork producers.

So advised Paul Heimel, a third-generation, 30-year veteran meat producer, buyer and broker. As director of meat and seafood operations for the nation's largest natural foods cooperative, Wedge Coop of Minneapolis, Heimel spoke at a sustainable agriculture seminar sponsored by the Leopold Center this spring. He now coordinates the certified organic meat program at CROPP-Organic Valley of Lafarge, Wisconsin.

Heimel said the emergence of products with the "natural" or "organic" label is big news in the food industry. Products with this label comprise 28 percent of the overall market. Considering the potential, especially in meat products, Heimel sees big growth ahead for "natural" and "organic" foods, now estimated at $4.5 billion in sales.

"Producers ask me how they can gain a market niche and the answer is simple," he told producers who watched the seminar from five Iowa Communications Network sites. "It lies in their ability to get involved in organic food markets."

Heimel suggested that small producers start by joining an organized cooperative, or align themselves with producers who have similar interests. Cooperatives help producers know what's required for their operation to be certified as "organic" by an independent agency, and help them market their hogs as such.

While pork prices were hovering around $12-$15 per hundredweight for conventionally-raised hogs last spring, Heimel said he was paying $70 live weight for "naturally-grown" pork. Free-range, antibiotic-free poultry can fetch a solid 20 to 30 percent premium.

For any meat product to be labeled "natural" at the Wedge store, it must be from livestock raised in an open range without antibiotics or hormones and fed a balanced diet that does not contain animal byproducts. Several farmers that Heimel buys from also are certified organic producers, which means that crops fed to animals are grown without chemicals. Heimel visits each farm or ranch to see that animals receive humane treatment, and inspects processing facilities for sanitation techniques that exceed USDA requirements.

Heimel has seen first-hand the consumer demand for meat labeled "natural" and "organic." He joined Wedge in 1997, when the vegetarian cooperative decided to take a big step: add a meat and seafood department. Their 4,500 members were divided, but the coop has since added 2,000 people to its membership, and sales to nonmembers have grown from 44 to 52 percent of total sales.

"The potential is limited only by the size of our store and the area we have dedicated to natural and organic meat products," he said. The meat department was designed to handle $18,000 to $20,000 in sales per week, a goal surpassed during the first year.

He works with 16 producers, all small family farmers, to provide poultry (42 percent of meat sales), beef (17 percent), pork (7 percent), lamb (2 percent), and buffalo (1 percent). Wedge Coop also offers seafood, which makes up 28 percent of total meat sales, and specialty items such as rabbit, venison, duck, and pheasant.

"We sold 1,000 turkeys last Thanksgiving at $1.99 a pound and we ran out," he said.

Heimel believes this trend to organics has been fueled by industrial farming and multinational corporations.

"They've taken the pride and dignity out of the most honorable profession in the world," he said. "The only thing that can stand up to it is people and I see it happening in growing opposition to irradiation, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), super bugs that no one can get a handle on in our food due to antibiotics, growth stimulants and feed that contains animal byproducts."

People also like to connect their meat with the people who raise it. Fliers and posters in the Wedge meat department show the families in an operation, their philosophy, and standards by which they operate.

"We like to tell the story of our producers. We sell Bob's chickens, Bill's turkeys, Bonnie's lambs, and Howard's beef," Heimel said.

He continues to be amazed by the growth. Heimel states, "The changes I've seen in the last seven years I don't think my grandfather or father saw in the 50 years they were in the meat business."