Meat processing plant draws interest

Two public meetings have been scheduled in September where county residents can gather to listen to a presentation and make comments regarding building a livestock processing facility in the region.

CalaverasGROWN secured a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study the feasibility of building such a facility in the Central Sierra Region, and the results of this study will be presented at the meetings.

On Monday, Sept. 17, a meeting will be held at the Amador County Health and Human Services Building at 10877 Conductor Boulevard in Martel. On Tuesday, Sept. 18, a second meeting will be held in the Frogeteria at the Calaveras County Fairgrounds at 101 Frogtown Road outside Angels Camp. Both meetings will run from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m.

A free grass-fed beef dinner will be served from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. prior to the Amador County meeting. Guests must RSVP to arcd@amadorrcd.org. There will be a half hour social, starting at 6 p.m. before the Calaveras meeting with food and drinks provided.

Paloma resident Sean Kriletich has been pushing for the development of a meat processing facility for quite some time.

“The whole issue is essentially we can’t eat meat we see grazing on the side of the road,” he said. “There is a dearth of local livestock, slaughter and processing facilities.”

While the idea of a Mother Lode processing plant is nothing new, this recent effort finally is bringing the region closer than it’s ever been before to the creation of a USDA-inspected livestock harvest and processing facility, a release from CalaverasGROWN said.

Currently, ranchers looking to process and wrap meat must transport their livestock to Orland – three hours north of Calaveras. However, that could change within the year, Kriletich said, as he assesses “promising locations” in Toyon, near Valley Springs, and Ione in Amador County.

He said the county’s current livestock-slaughtering process is expensive and time consuming. Ranchers must employ a ranch butcher – a professional who comes to a farm and slaughters livestock. The ranch butcher then takes the carcass to a traditional butcher, where the animal is sliced into prime cuts. Federal law states that meat from cattle, swine, sheep, goat and poultry can only be sold if they are slaughtered in a USDA-inspected facility. Kriletich said these slabs of meat would be permitted for resale at the proposed meat processing plant.

“Local butchers cannot sell meat for resale,” Sean said. “We are not interested in cutting into their businesses and in fact can help butchers. Our facility has the ability to resell the prime cuts of meat from these butchers.”

The feasibility study steering committee, which includes members with diverse backgrounds from throughout the Central Sierra region, has done an enormous amount of research, investigation, planning and modeling.

“We are now ready to present these findings to the greater community,” the release said. “We will present our extensive findings to residents, businesspeople and potential investors. We look forward to seeing you, the interested public of our Central Sierra foothills communities so we can answer your questions and show you what we have learned about the potential for livestock processing in our region and the positive economic and employment impacts such a facility would ripple through our communities.”

All those interested in improved economic conditions for all foothill residents, are invited.

“We are especially looking for those people who might be willing to invest in a regional livestock processing facility but invite everyone to attend,” the release said.

These meetings are being held with the goal of improving economic and employment opportunities in the region by starting a business, which is based on existing economic drivers in our communities and which will not detract from, but instead enhance the rural and agricultural nature of our region, the release said.

For more information, visit calaverasgrown.org and/or contact Carina Bassin at livestockcarina@gmail.com.

Prior to the Amador meeting, the Amador Resource Conservation District will host a workshop on niche meat marketing. It will run from 2:15 to 5:15 p.m. at the same location as the livestock processing facility meeting. Regional livestock producers and meat marketers Dan Macon and Dan Port will present an information rich session along with other knowledgeable presenters.

Contact Joel Metzger at joel@calaverasenterprise.com