Wisconsin Ag Connects Producers to Processors
In partnership with: Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
In April 2020, farmer Terry Schaefer had three truckloads of pigs ready for market when he received word that the meat processing plant couldn’t take them because of a shutdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Connecting Pork Producers to Meat Processors
“We were able to get one of those trucks out, but we just had to keep feeding the pigs from the other two,” recalls Schaefer, co-owner of Double T & D Grain, a family-run finishing operation near Platteville. Unsure if or when large pork processing plants would reopen, “it was a stressful time because we didn’t know where we would be from day to day,” he says.
He and 11 other pork producers turned to the Wisconsin Pork Association (WPA), which joined forces with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) to create the Passion for Pork program. This initiative connected pork producers to local meat processors that were able to accommodate the heightened demand for their services. The program created new destinations for pork that might otherwise have gone to waste, according to Keri Retallick, WPA Executive Vice President.
Processing a Plan
Identifying those new destinations fell to Jeff Swenson, DATCP Livestock and Meat Specialist. When a large processing facility in Iowa closed on April 6, 2020, Swenson and Retallick sprang into action to get Passion for Pork up and running.
“I contacted as many meat processors in Wisconsin as I could, in any way I could. I wanted to find out if anyone could take extra pigs for processing,” Swenson says.
Some small butcher shops added Saturday shifts or extra employees to take on additional hogs for harvest and process the meat into primal cuts.
See more: Wisconsin Meat Processors Bring Pheasants to the Table
“Once we got over the labor hurdle with the small butcher shops, the next step was to get the carcasses moved because the coolers in those small shops aren’t big enough to store the extra capacity,” Swenson explains.
Primal cuts typically move on to wholesalers, who further process the meat into more popular retail cuts such as pork chops, bacon and brats.
“Many wholesalers had the capacity and welcomed the additional work,” says Swenson, noting that these wholesalers normally supply restaurants, university dining halls and other institutional customers that were shuttered due to the pandemic.
Processing in a Pandemic
Those retail cuts were distributed in several ways. In some cases, processors bought it to sell at their butcher shops. In another instance, two Wisconsin FFA chapters in DeForest and Waupaun partnered with WPA to sell Passion for Pork bundles with curbside pickup in their communities. Additionally, the program helped deliver almost 172 tons of pork to food banks throughout the state. Swenson says that equates to 1.83 million 3-ounce servings of freshly produced pork.
See more: Guide to Common Cuts of Pork
To pay for the costs associated with the processing, storage and delivery of the pork to food banks and pantries, WPA accepted donations from the public. In compliance with Wisconsin law, DATCP did not solicit or accept any contributions. However, WPA collected more than $10,000 through this separate fundraising effort, according to Retallick.
For Schaefer, participating in Passion for Pork meant trucking his hogs two and half hours north to Iron Ridge. There Cedar Road Meats, another participant, could take 45 of Schaefer’s pigs in each trip. In comparison, a trailer of hogs destined for a large processing facility would hold 170 animals. Even so, Schaefer estimates he sold over 700 hogs through the Passion for Pork program.
“It saved us,” Schaefer says of the initiative. “It was enough to keep us going so we didn’t have to euthanize any pigs. We were able to keep things rolling.”