Meat+Poultry - February 2023 - 12

WASHINGTON
Ongoing investments
The US Department of Agriculture
continues to make significant
investments in expanding the US meat
and poultry processing infrastructure.
During the American Farm Bureau
Federation annual convention,
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack
announced the agency would fund
more than $12 million to expand
independent processing capacity in
Ohio, Michigan and Minnesota using an
expansion program grant.
In Ohio, International Food
Solutions received more than $9.5
million to redevelop and expand a
vacant building in Cleveland to turn it
into a processing plant. The expansion
will include cold and dry storage and
two processing lines.
The company expects to have
the capacity to process 60 million
lbs of poultry and create 227 jobs.
International Food Solutions is a
woman- and minority-owned business
that has produced thousands of
prepared meals for K-12 students
receiving free and reduced-price
school meals.
In Michigan, grower-owned
cooperative Michigan Turkey
Producers will receive more than
$1.5 million to upgrade the hot water
system, wastewater treatment facilities
and refrigerated trailers at its plant in
Grand Rapids. The agency said that
with recent automation upgrades and
continuing expansion, the plant can
add a shift and double its processing
capacity to 10 million turkeys annually.
The additional capacity also will
allow the plant to provide backup
for other facilities of similar size in
neighboring states.
Finally, Benson + Turner Foods
Inc., based in Waubun, Minn., will
receive $962,954 to build a 6,788
square-foot cattle and hog processing
plant on the White Earth Indian
Reservation. The grant will help the
company use locally grown livestock
and provide new opportunities for
producers to market their products by
providing USDA-certified processing.
USDA said these projects were in
addition to the first round of funding
announced last November which
provided $74 million to 22 grant
projects as part of the agency's Meat
and Poultry Processing Expansion
Program (MPPEP).
Vilsack also announced an
investment of $9.6 million in loans
and grants to 25 independent meat
processing businesses that he said
would help strengthen the nation's
meat supply chain.
" USDA is putting the needs of
farmers, ranchers and consumers
at the forefront of the Biden-Harris
administration's work to strengthen
the resiliency of America's food supply
chain while promoting competition, "
Vilsack said. " USDA has undertaken
a department-wide approach to
coordinate ways to deliver more
opportunities and fairer prices for
producers, to give people access to
healthier foods, eliminate bottlenecks
in the food supply chain and ultimately
lower prices for consumers. "
Two operations - Jordan's Meat
Market LLC, Le Mars, Iowa, and
Bottomland Prime LLC, Wolfforth,
Texas, - are receiving loans through
the Food Supply Chain Guaranteed
Loan Program, which total $5.7 million.
The 23 grants given through the
Value Added Producer Grant program
total $3.9 million.
" This program essentially works
with producers to give them an
opportunity to not only benefit
from the production of a particular
agricultural commodity but also the
process of that, " Vilsack said during a
conference call with media.
" The point of this is that we're
looking at a creative, comprehensive
set of opportunities to expand more
new and better market opportunities
for meat and poultry, " Vilsack said.
" We're going to do this over the next
several months as we utilize American
Rescue Plan resources. "
Vilsack anticipated that during 2023
a companion program will focus on
non-meat processing.
M+P STAFF | meatpoult r y@sos land.com
" The point of this is that we're looking at a
creative, comprehensive set of opportunities
to expand more new and better market
opportunities for meat and poultry. "
- TOM VILSACK
12 MEAT+POULTRY | 02.23 | www.meatpoultry.com
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Meat+Poultry - February 2023

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