Use a feasibility study to determine if new meat processing facilities are warranted, 

and identify ways to remove barriers for local meat producers.

AMS GRANTS AWARDED

Local Food Promotion Program (LFPP) 2014

Planning Grant for $24,750 

Project types: Enterprise Planning, General 

Business Planning

HISTORY OF BUSINESS OR PROJECT

In 1969, the Allegany, Cattaraugus, and Chautauqua 

County legislatures in New York adopted a resolution 

creating the Southern Tier West (STW) Regional 

Planning and Development Board. The STW mission is 

to coordinate and enhance planning and development 

activities in southwestern New York to promote social, 

physical, and economic development in these counties. 

STW’s project sought to assess the local meat industry, 

uncover its challenges, and determine whether opening 

a new red meat processing facility in the area was 

warranted. STW set out to quantify the following 

key assumptions: 1) that demand for inspected meat 

processing facilities and services exceeded supply; and 

2) that customer service, pricing, and value-added 

processing of those existing facilities were below the 

level that farmers desired.

STW contracted with Kitchen Table Consultants, a food 

business consulting firm, to conduct and write the 

study. After determining that it would not be feasible 

to build a new plant, the planning team redirected their 

efforts to develop a set of recommendations to address 

some of the regional meat supply chain challenges.

WHY THEY CHOSE TO APPLY FOR AN AMS 

GRANT/WHAT AN AMS GRANT MEANT FOR 

THEIR BUSINESS/ORGANIZATION?

STW indicated that while their agency would have 

conducted some sort of assessment, the study would 

not have been as robust without the AMS grant funds. 

The funds allowed STW to hire an expert consulting 

firm that went far beyond the agency’s internal 

data collection capacity by compiling and analyzing 

secondary data and collecting primary data through 

onsite interviews with processors. A less detailed 

study would have resulted in bias towards the meat 

producers’ needs without understanding the context 

of the processors’ capacity and challenges. The AMS 

grant also freed up STW staff resources to do other food 

system development work, such as explore regional 

food hub concepts. 

KEY IMPACTS OF THE GRANT, 

SHORT-TERM AND LONGER-TERM

Most of STW and their local Cornell Cooperative 

Extension programming is on the farmer/rancher 

side. The work of Kitchen Table Consultants expanded 

Agricultural

Marketing 

Service

March 2020

Southern Tier West

Salamanca, NY
relationships to meat processors, distributors, and 

others in the regional meat supply chain. They visited 

them in person and built relationships and trust.

“The turn that the entire project took, away from 

building a new meat processing facility, was a big ‘aha’ 

for us. Finding out that there was not a need for a new 

facility and that existing plants had excess capacity at 

certain times of the year really challenged our 

original assumptions,” Project Director Kimberly 

Mendola shared.

The final report suggested some approaches to address 

gaps in the regional meat supply chain: 

1. Creating a variety of tools and projects to 

improve meat processing in the region, including 

programs to bring the local meat processors 

together for roundtable discussions. Additional 

programming could include education 

modules to unify farmers’ needs with what the 

processors can deliver.

2. Raising capital to assist local processors through 

a voluntary program designed to ensure their 

capacity, whether that be via equipment 

upgrades, succession planning, butchery training 

programs, or business analysis. 

Overall, communication between farmers and 

processors improved over the course of this project and 

participants also gained a better grasp of new service 

providers. Although there are still some farmers who 

would like to see a new plant, most of the participants 

understand that a new facility just does not make 

economic sense. 

WHERE THEY WOULD LIKE TO GO NEXT

Kimberly LaMendola the former Project Director, 

suggested, among other ideas, working more closely 

with entities like Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) 

on projects to educate consumers on the affordability/

accessibility of buying meat in bulk. She also built a 

website called MeatSuite that connects farmers with 

consumers. By working with CCE, she has learned 

about other creative solutions for those that don’t have 

freezer space, such as CCE’s Meat Locker pilot project.

With this research in their back pocket, STW is now 

focused on developing a regional food hub. They are 

also networking producers and processors via a regional 

agriculture industry summit that will feature a specialty 

focus on the regional meat supply chain. Additionally, 

with the recently enhanced New York State Farm-toSchool funding streams, several school districts are 

now connected with local meat producers as sources 

for part of their need for ground beef and pre-made 

beef patties.

REFERENCES/LINKS

http://www.kitchentableconsultants.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/meatprocessingstudy.pdf

https://www.vtfarmtoplate.com/network/meatprocessing

CONTACT INFORMATION

Niche Meat Processor Assistance Network

Rebecca Thistlethwaite

Email: thistler@oregonstate.edu

USDA Agricultural Marketing Service

Samantha Schaffstall

Email: samantha.schaffstall@usda.gov

This case study was 

created in fulfillment of 

a cooperative research 

agreement between 

the Marketing Services 

Division of the Agricultural Marketing Service of the 

United States Department of Agriculture (USDA AMS) 

and Oregon State University’s Niche Meat Processor 

Assistance Network (NMPAN).

Photo Credit: USDA

USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, 

and lender.