Oregon provides funding boost to local meat processors to strengthen food supply

Oregon agricultural regulators are once again giving a boost to locally-owned slaughterhouses to build up local meat supply. On Wednesday, the Oregon Department of Agriculture announced a “substantial investment” of $8.2 million, intended to keep more meat local.

The funds will go to 14 Oregon-based meat processors that are either already inspected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture or will come under the state’s fledgling inspection program. That program came online in 2022 following a $9 million investment from the state Legislature after the USDA agreed to give the state Agriculture Department the ability to establish its own inspection program, so long as it met federal inspection requirements.

This time around, the state will distribute the money in the form of a grant for local processors to purchase new equipment and increase processing capacity.

Lisa Charpilloz Hanson, director of the Oregon Department of Agriculture, said the investment is a strategic move to address some of the limits processors and ranchers face.

“This is the second major investment the state is making in meat processing in Oregon. Our beef industry is a significant contributor to the national livestock supply chain, but much of the economic opportunity is lost because the processing is out of the state,” Charpilloz Hanson said in a statement.

Charpilloz Hanson also said the investment gives more options to ranchers and farmers when they’re looking for a processor, thereby strengthening the local food supply.

Before the Oregon state meat inspection program came online, ranchers and farmers relied on just 13 USDA inspected processors scattered across the state. A shortage of inspectors, especially at the peak of the pandemic, made it increasingly difficult for smaller to medium-sized ranchers to find a place for butchering livestock, said Casey Miller, owner of the Meating Place, a butcher shop and cafe in Hillsboro.

“There’s just not nearly enough inspected processors to really make the local food chain work. Right now, people are having to truck their animals all the way to Eastern Oregon or Idaho or southern Oregon or even farther to get them processed under inspection,” Miller said. “ODA’s program is really trying to simplify all those steps and get more meat producers under inspection within the state.”

Miller’s butcher shop was one of the first state inspected facilities. His business also just received $697,500 from the latest grants.He said the plan is to build a new slaughterhouse division to process animals for other meat producers under inspection. Which means that ranchers can then be able to sell it under their own label at restaurants, farmers markets or grocery stores.

“These funds are going a long way to taking the risk out of us jumping in to kind of fill this void,” Miller said.

ODA projects the state investment will lead to an additional 3.5 million pounds of locally sourced meat in communities throughout Oregon annually.