Author photo

By Jana Mathia
Gazette Editor 

Bringing home the bacon:

Local custom butchers see rise in demand for meat

 

April 23, 2020

The cuts keep coming as a hog is processed at Garfield Meat Shop.

COLFAX–Last month Garfield Meat Shop processed 10 pigs. In the past three weeks it has processed 10 to 19 pigs a week with more calls coming in every day.

"It's pretty amazing," said owner and butcher Tom Tevlin.

Tevlin has seen a sharp increase in requests for custom butchering since the COVID-19 crisis hit full swing. He has been working to find the animals to fill the demand while more people call his shop looking for product. In the past 10 days alone he has received three to four calls a day from people asking how custom butchering works or wanting to get an animal.

Meeting the sudden surge in demand takes a bit of doing. Pork producers in Whitman County have been able to fill pork orders, but he's had a harder time finding beef animals.

"We don't have enough beef producers right now," Tevlin said. He has been making calls to producers in the county, checking his calendar and asking if they have any extra or any that can be processed early. One producer was set to butcher for his own family, but as the need wasn't urgent, sold the animal to another. Another producer was scheduled to butcher later in May, but had two animals ready to go now, so they were moved up in the line.

"It's been quite interesting," said Kelli Broeckel with Outlaw Meats in LaCrosse. "There are more and more people looking for (local meat)."

The custom meat shops like Garfield and Outlaw Meats do not sell the meat. Customers must first own the animals and the butchers are paid for their jobs of slaughter and processing. When a call comes in from someone wanting a whole or part animal, the butchers find a grower to get a price. If the customer agrees, they buy their portion of the animal and place their order for how they want the animal processed. Within about two weeks the order is ready for pick up, cut and packaged. The producers are paid for the animal and the butcher for the kill, cut and wrap.

While Tevlin has been able to fill the orders from within Whitman County, the orders are coming from beyond the county line. He has taken calls from Tri-Cities, Yakima and the west side of the state.

Despite the spike in demand, producers aren't capitalizing on the opportunity to make an extra dollar by raising prices; instead they are maintaining price the same as they maintain quality.

"My producers are just trying to raise a product," Tevlin said. He sees it as an opportunity to grow business by hopefully retaining new customers.

"It would be great if I could retain 50 percent of the customers."

Tevlin attributes the surge to the current crisis. One factor is people have realized they can't take grocery stores – or those stores being stocked – for granted. There are shopping restrictions that can complicate once-routine trips to the store. And once there, there is no guarantee there is meat in the freezer. Another factor is people have more time to think about how and why they do things, including where their food comes from.

"We're all kinda taking a double check on how we live," Tevlin said.

People may also be suffering a lack of confidence in large scale food production. A rash of COVID-19 cases were recently linked to a Tyson meat processing facility in Wallula. Benton, Franklin and Walla Walla counties linked positive COVID-19 cases back to the plant. While the facility has not been shut down, production has slowed down. COVID-19 health issues have affected other meat processing plants, raising concern about grocers receiving their product.

Regardless the reason, Whitman County producers and butchers are gladly rising to meet the demand, providing their customers the same products as always and with it a direct farm-to-table link and a sense of food security they may struggle to find elsewhere.

Author Bio

Jana Mathia, Reporter

Author photo

Jana Mathia is a reporter at the Whitman County Gazette.

 

Reader Comments(0)

 
 

Our Family of Publications Includes:

Cheney Free Press
Ritzville Adams County Journal
Whitman County Gazette
Odessa Record
Franklin Connection
Davenport Times
Spokane Valley News Herald
Colfax Daily Bulletin

Powered by ROAR Online Publication Software from Lions Light Corporation
© Copyright 2024