Where’s the beef? How an old business can create new jobs

Despite Calaveras County’s high unemployment, Paloma resident Sean Kriletich is bullish on the local economy. The goat and pig rancher sees greener pastures ahead.

Kriletich and his father, Michael, are drawing up plans that would bring a meat processing plant to the Mother Lode. As an agricultural and natural resources representative at Calaveras Grown, Sean is well-versed on the challenges facing area ranchers.

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

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, Sean said, as the Kriletiches are assessing “promising locations” in Toyon, near Valley Springs, and Ione in Amador County.

Sean said the county’s current livestock slaughtering process is expensive and time-consuming. Local ranchers must employ a ranch butcher – a professional who comes to your farm and slaughters livestock. The ranch butcher then takes the carcass to a traditional butcher, where the animal is sliced into prime cuts. However, a 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. Sean 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.”

In addition to propping up area butchers, Sean said a meat processing plant could create between 15 to 30 jobs. The Kriletiches believe a plant could provide cost-effective alternatives to ranchers while concurrently laying the groundwork for a regional food system.

“Most beef, goat, and lamb go to auctions and are sold live on hoof to feed-lot buyers,” Sean said. “Part of the reason for a smaller facility that handles 10 animals is that you don’t get meat from 1,000 animals in a single hamburger.”

Sean attributes most recalls to mixing meat sources; making it nearly impossible to identify which cow or steer supplied the contaminated beef. The USDA estimates that foodborne diseases sicken 76 million people, cause 325,000 hospitalizations, and kill 5,000 Americans every year.
“If this were to ever become an issue at our local plant, it would make it very easy to identify the contamination source,” Sean said.

The father-son duo is not limiting itself to meat. The Kriletiches envision shifting into fruit and vegetable processing during the summer; thereby providing a one-stop plant capable of converting raw materials into finished goods.

“This facility would buy tomatoes from the tri-county and then process it for sauce,” Sean said. “It would incentivize local small-scale farming.”
While the economic impact on the county has not been measured, Sean said ranchers would likely embrace a plant that would slash their transportation costs.

“The average bite of food you take has traveled 1,200 miles and we would like to see that be 100 miles,” Sean said. “When food travels that far, a lot of additional costs are added.”

If the plant comes to fruition, food-processing costs spent outside the region could find their way to Calaveras, Amador and Tuolumne counties. In 2010, cattle and calves accounted for more than $7 million of Calaveras’ agricultural economy – nearly one-third of total farm commodities.
“We are losing money outside of our region,” Sean said. “Instead of creating a better source of income in this region, we are creating income for people in other regions with lesser quality goods.”

The Kriletiches say the facility would cost about $3 million, but are confident it would take only two years to recoup the money. Sean admits that while he has a great deal of expertise on the subject, he is searching for investors who possess greater “business savvy.”

“We would really like to see this funded by a local investment network,” Sean said. “We are encouraging people to buy in at different levels.”
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