{"id":2374,"date":"2013-06-28T04:54:34","date_gmt":"2013-06-28T08:54:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/?p=2374"},"modified":"2013-06-28T04:54:34","modified_gmt":"2013-06-28T08:54:34","slug":"the-processing-conundrum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/the-processing-conundrum\/","title":{"rendered":"The processing conundrum…."},"content":{"rendered":"

….the largest single cost in producing local meat, whether beef or pork, is the processing.\u00a0 Butchering your meat is just about half the total cost.<\/p>\n

We reported awhile back that the bill for processing a steer into beef is very close to $500.\u00a0 That compares to the $50 the Giants pay at the huge, factory meat-packing plants.<\/p>\n

It’s not that the local butchers are getting rich.\u00a0 It’s a matter of scale.\u00a0 They have to hire full-time crew to handle a sporadic supply as small farmers finish their animals.\u00a0 And butchering itself is something of a “lost art”.<\/p>\n

We’re very fortunate here to have a choice of many butchers (some dare call them “abattoirs”).\u00a0 There are five USDA facilities within 30 miles.\u00a0 Most places have none and farmers may have to travel hundreds of miles for processing.\u00a0 Here’s a formal report on the problem.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/extension.oregonstate.edu\/news\/release\/2013\/06\/whats-holding-back-local-meat?utm_source=vocus&utm_medium=news_release&utm_content=news&utm_campaign=news_release<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

….the largest single cost in producing local meat, whether beef or pork, is the processing.\u00a0 Butchering your meat is just about half the total cost. We reported awhile back that the bill for processing a steer into beef is very close to $500.\u00a0 That compares to the $50 the Giants pay at the huge, factory meat-packing plants. It’s not that the local butchers are getting rich.\u00a0 It’s a matter of scale.\u00a0 They have to hire full-time crew to handle a sporadic supply as small farmers finish their animals.\u00a0 And butchering itself is something of a “lost art”. We’re very fortunate here to have a choice of many butchers (some dare call them “abattoirs”).\u00a0 There are five USDA facilities within 30 miles.\u00a0 Most places have none and farmers may have to travel hundreds of miles for processing.\u00a0 Here’s a formal report on the problem. http:\/\/extension.oregonstate.edu\/news\/release\/2013\/06\/whats-holding-back-local-meat?utm_source=vocus&utm_medium=news_release&utm_content=news&utm_campaign=news_release<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-marketing"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2375,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374\/revisions\/2375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thistlehill.net\/wpblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}