Where Animals Become Local Meat: A Virginian Slaughterhouse

Joe Cloud of T&E Meats

I wrote a story on local slaughterhouses that ran today in WaPo -- my first story for the food section and one I wondered whether they would take. I mean, how do you write about a slaughterhouses in the food section? These sections generally focus on food, maybe the farms, but slaughterhouses don't usually figure in the mix. So I give editor Joe Yonan credit for seeing the story.

I decided to tackle the subject head on, literally, and lead with the slaughter of the animals. After all, that's what I had come to see. It wasn't only important for the article but for me as a meat eater. I felt I should at least be able to at least see the process if I was going to eat the stuff (others go further and actually participate).

People have asked how I felt seeing animals slaughtered. I thought I would be slightly sickened by the experience, but I wasn't. The men doing the work were serious and careful. They weren't rushed and the animals met their end quickly. (As Tim Amlaw, director of American Humane Certified, a farm animal welfare program, told me: "It needs to be instantaneous -- that's the most humane.") I found the work fascinating. It isn't easy to turn an animal into meat and there is a true craft to butcher work -- a dying craft actually in this age of automation.

The slaughterhouse I focused on, True and Essential Meats, is part-owned by Joel Salatin, the farmer who figures in Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma. But what I found interesting was the way Salatin roped in former landscape architect Joe Cloud to reinvent his career and buy the facility with him. Cloud was an easy target: this guy loves food and lives on a beautiful farm out in the Shenandoah Valley. Here's the lead of the story:

HARRISONBURG, VA. -- Huddled in a small pen in the slaughterhouse, the four sheep and two goats were quiet and still. A few men nearby in thick rubber aprons cut away at still-warm carcasses hanging on hooks.

"They don't seem to know what's going on," a visitor remarked.

"Oh, they know," one of the butchers replied. "They know."

Maybe it was that awareness that led the men to work quietly and efficiently, dispatching each animal with a bolt shot to the head, until the last sheep, perhaps realizing that the flock was gone, began to bleat. Then she too fell silent. 

Read the rest of the item on the WaPo site. 

Here's a list of local meat sellers in the DC region and Shenandoah Valley.

- Samuel Fromartz

Comments

[Marilyn]

Great article! I read it in the Post this AM. I didn't know it was yours until I got to the end, as I had missed the byline - but then when I saw Chewswise I wasn't surprised at all.
I think both children and adults are ready for witnessing this at different times, but when my 6 yr olds are up to it, this will be a field trip for us. They know animals die so they can be eaten, and children of a different age had no illusions about how that happened.
Transparency throughout the full lifecycle of food production can only help us all - keep up all your good work towards that end!

[NorCal Cazadora]

Looking forward to reading the story, and I'm glad to have found your blog - came to you via @fromfarmtotable on Twitter.

That WaPo was willing to share this with its readers reflects a growing enlightenment in the media about the reality of the food chain. I'm more of a hunter-gatherer than a farmer, but I appreciate anything that helps the masses see food in an honest light. (I freelance too, and my local paper, the Sacramento Bee, is showing renewed interest in hunting stories, in part because people are seeing hunting as an alternative to the industrial meat complex.)

Good to hear what Salatin's up to as well - I've been a fan of his since I read the Omnivore's Dilemma, and then picked up a couple of Salatin's own books.

[Vegan Thyme (Kelly)]

I opened your post with great hesitation and, later, regret. You have struck a nerve with your article and post--most likely your goal as a journalist/writer. I wished for you to have written that watching the slaughter take place had bothered you--but apparently it did not. I imagine as a writer you felt a great sense of accomplishment in this story--giving the "ethical" meat movement (an oxymoron if there ever was one) a "nice guy" story, helping folks combat their meat concerns--noting how these workers go about their work "quietly". The gasp I let out when I read the "bolt to the head" shook me to my core. Whether it is less than two percent of meat processing practices or an eighty percent meat processing practice--the means by which these animals meet their end is cruel. Period. There is no justification for this other than we as a society have always turned a blind eye to what we've deemed "food": steak, chops, quarters, breasts. And, thanks to our slaughter practices, we now have third world countries seeking out ways to more quickly bring "meat" to their own tables--inevitably to face the obesity and green house gas nightmare we are facing to their own backyards. It is a sad and vicious cycle.

I read "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safran Foer--he came away from his investigative writing a changed person--at least his eating habits had changed. I had hoped the same for you before reading the entire article. Perhaps exposure to a less-than-friendly and "quiet" slaughterhouse may have changed your mind about food practices and your own personal eating choices. At least one would hope given your influence on the internet and in print media.

[Sam Fromartz]

Kelly, thanks for your thoughtful comment and I apologize that this post was unsettling to you.

I am not a vegetarian or vegan obviously, though I tend to eat meat in moderation. I respect you and other vegans for the choices you have made, but so far 95%+ of all eaters have chosen a different path - that is, to eat meat. The question thus becomes what happens to livestock unless or until you convince the vast majority of the public not to eat meat. This is why some vegans and vegetarians promote humane animal care and slaughter -- they realize many people will continue to eat meat and want to insure the quality of life and death for the animals which are eaten.

Many people I think feel the way you do about slaughter but the conclusion for them is to close their eyes when they eat meat. One idea of this piece was to shine a bit of light on this process, as painful as it is. If it's not considered, hidden, or willfully ignored, then its ripe for abuse.

[Vegan Thyme (Kelly)]

Sam,
Thank you for commenting back. Again, it was a very emotional piece for me to read. I get your point, and do realize vegans are a small, small percentage of the eating "food chain". However, it helps to have open dialogue on the matter, raising issues such as this (slaughter practices) and gathering input from all corners (meat eaters and non alike). Informed people will more likely understand how their eating choices impact the world at large vs. non-informed people, thus any coverage on the matter is better than none at all. Again, thank you.
Kelly

[Walter Jeffries]

The USDA has three levels for recognizing meat processing plants:
- Meat Processing Plants - The Smithfields and Tysons
- Small Plants - A great many
- Very Small Plants - All the ones here in New England and much like discussed by Sam Fromartz.

The USDA has a lot of helpful information for the Very Small Plants here:

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/science/Small_Very_Small_Plant_Outreach/index.asp

I have found that site invaluable. We are working on building something even smaller, a nano-scale meat processing facility offering on-farm slaughter, butchering, sausage making, curing and smoking for just our small family farm here in Vermont. Our project is an order of magnitude smaller than the USDA Very Small Plant size yet they have been quite helpful as has our state department of agriculture. It used to be said that you had to get big but what we're doing fits our farm's needs and will save over 360 hours a year of driving long distances to get to the "local" slaughterhouses.

Doing just for our farm simplifies the regulations, paperwork, insurance and a lot of other details. It keeps the offal here on the farm to be composted, returning the nutrients to the soil of our farm. It saves petroleum and transportation. It means I know my animals are getting humanely treated, because I handle them. It also means the cutting is done the way my customers need it, increases quality and shortens our order delay time - more benefits for customers.

A key to nano-scale is that it keeps the costs down which means we can do the labor ourselves, both of construction and operation. This means more money stays here on the farm and it provides a future and security for the next generation.

Like the farms mentioned by Sam we market directly to individuals, stores and restaurants rather than selling through wholesalers. We sell a high quality, humanely and naturally raised pastured pork delivered fresh year round. That's our niche and our focus. This puts us close to our customers. Integrating the USDA/State inspected on-farm slaughter and butchering into our farm will give us more control and security for our farm.

Funding is a bit of a catch, banks don't want to lend even though we have lots of equity. So we're bootstrapping it with some help from customers, local merchants and friends. Construction is slower that way but it gets the job done in a community supported agriculture type way.

It used to be that there were thousands of nano-scale local butcher shops serving individual farms, towns and neighborhoods. Time to bring them back. Customers can make the difference to increasing our food security by making it available locally from pasture to plate.

Cheers,

Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm, LLC
Pastured Pigs in the mountains of Vermont
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/butchershop

[Donn]

Thanks so much for the article

With the process being so far removed from everyday consciousness, any talk about slaughtering and slaughterhouses is good for us as consumers and farmers.

Here in Georgia, and other parts of the Deep South, we lack so much infrastructure to move the conscientious farming and eating movement forward. Hopefully, simply bringing the issue to light can be the beginning of cultural and policy change on the ground.

As it is, it's simply absurd. For example, this state processes millions of chickens per day, but small farmer trying to process legally a hundred free-chickens must travel to South Carolina to the nearest USDA-inspected facility. Or, they just sell it on a kind of "good food" black market.

[TruthSeeker]

Nice article -- it's always great to see the local food movement getting some mainstream media attention. It's just too bad that you included Bev Eggleston of EcoFriendly Foods as an exemplar of the movement. Here's a reality check:

First, you gave the impression that Bev slaves away doing the work himself. Not so: his staff of cheap Mexican laborers does most of it. Worse, he doesn't pay his farmer suppliers with any regularity -- as one of them, I should know. In other words, he gets the profits and glory (from media attention like your article), while us farmers who do the real work get a minimum cut only after months and months of pestering him. Many farmers I know have stopped dealing with him in disgust.

He's either an utterly incompetent businessman or a self-aggrandizing charlatan, I can't decide which. I do know he's an expert at one thing: marketing.

Please don't anoint Eggleston as a leader of the local/grass-fed livestock movement -- the movement deserves better.