Among the worst outbreaks of COVID-19 in Colorado are several tied to the meat-packing industry. At the Cargill plant in Morgan County, 103 workers tested positive, and at the JBS USA plant in Greeley, there were 289 cases along with six deaths.
So how does the meat-processing industry recover? Ask Curtis and Cathy Tempel in Bent County.
The Tempels, whose family goes back in southeast Colorado more than 100 years, are going to try their hand at a new processing plant near Granada, in Prowers County.
And they’re designing this small production facility with COVID-19 in mind.
The plant has been in the works for a couple of years now, Cathy Tempel told Colorado Politics recently, but the outbreak made them aware that there were other steps they could take to protect employee health from COVID-19 or any pandemic that may arise in the future.
They didn’t have to rethink a lot, given that harvesting practices require a high level of cleanliness to be USDA certified, Cathy Tempel said. But the number of people in their plant will be much smaller, and social distancing will occur somewhat naturally, assisted by plexiglass dividers. They plan to process about 30 head per day.
At the moment, the Tempels are looking for and working with investors, and finishing agreements with local officials in Lamar, Granada and Prowers County.
At start-up, they probably won’t have more than a dozen employees, and half of them will be administrative. If the demand is there, full employment would be at 20 to 25, as well as the potential for a second shift. The Tempels eventually hope to open a Front Range store, possibly in the Monument area. Consumers could find out about the cow they’re buying: who the producer is or how many days it’s been on grass or grain, for example.
Cathy Tempel said they’re looking at how to mitigate for COVID and anything else that comes along. “A lot of this stuff is emerging, and there’s no regulations on it” or anything in place “that says this is how you have to do it.“
“If we need to do social distancing,” the administrative team, including human resources and bookkeeping, could be located elsewhere, she explained. That keeps them separate from the “kill” floor and the workers.
As bad as COVID-19 has been, she said, something else could come along that could be worse. “This might be a good example on how to prepare for that kind of possibility.”
She attributes the problems with the novel coronavirus in the industry to conglomerates that now control 85% of the market. That eliminated individual butchers and shops, she said, and that led to the end of local control of the meat supply.
The demand for what the Tempels’ plant will produce comes from both ends, she quipped: the producer and the consumer. A lot of producers want to sell good quality meat in small batches. There’s nowhere to go in the area to do that. Those who can process on their own can only do it in very small quantities and can’t keep up with the demand.
For the producer who works with the Tempels' plant, they’ll get a much better price for their cows. The markup between what the producer gets and how much it can be sold for in a store is “about 1,000%,” she said.
The Tempels say they will charge comparable prices for the meat to the consumer, but because they work directly with the producer and then sell the product, that leaves out the middleman, and much more money will then stay with the producer.
For consumers, it’s more local control over their meat supply, especially for a higher quality product. “Most people are willing to pay a little more,” she said.
Getting more money to the producer, giving a better quality product to the consumer, and creating jobs is a win-win-win for southeast Colorado, Cathy Tempel said.
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August 23, 2020 at 02:00AM
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A new path forward for meat processing in the COVID-19 era - Colorado Springs Gazette
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