Big Food’s Weapon Against Local/Regional Meat Processors
The pandemic exposed the fragility of global supply chains, but killing food re-localization efforts is still strong.
Small locally-owned and operated meat plants can help rebuild rural communities while providing
safe and affordable food to consumers.
The Weapon: A cheap by-product/imported beef trim/waste fat blend of ingredients that costs essentially half of U.S. domestically sourced pure ground beef.
From retailers, to food service companies delivering to independent restaurants, to chains and institutions, this by-product ground beef blend is used to price out local/regional small plants drowning in comparatively high priced trim, usually representing around one third of the carcass. In the case of cull cows and bulls, ground beef is nearly 100% of the carcass.
The combination of LFTB (lean finely textured beef a.k.a. “pink slime”), imported trim, and big meatpacker waste fat, is a cocktail no small meat plant sourcing high quality animals from local producers can compete with. Yet, USDA, while facilitating cheap imports and by-product use in ground beef, claims to support building new local/regional food infrastructure.
LFTB a.k.a. “Pink Slime” is a by-product from
the big meatpacker’s boxed beef operations.
In the 1990s, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture Jo Ann Smith, overruled agency microbiologists and allowed lean finely textured beef (pink slime) for human consumption, bringing hundreds of millions of dollars to Beef Products Incorporated (BPI). Beef trim from the biggest beef plants, previously used for pet food, was allowed to be rinsed in anhydrous ammonia and added to ground beef for human consumption, a practice most USDA scientists and small independent meat plants would never consider. Following her tenure at USDA, Jo Ann Smith served on the boards of both BPI and Tyson/IBP, the primary beneficiaries of her decision.
Additionally, as demand for beef tallow increases, again, small whole animal plants are shut out of the market. Small plants rendering pelvic fat for beef tallow cannot compete with the cheaper by-product tallow. Big cooking operations collecting fat from pathogen positive beef, as well as fat from LFTB production, are able to sell well below the cost of smaller local/regional whole animal processors.
It’s important to differentiate small plants that slaughter from plants that further process boxed meat from the big meatpackers. Whole animal slaughter plants cannot stay in business without a fair price for ground beef, which makes up to around one third of the animal. They provide the most essential, and mostly missing, part of a resilient animal supply chain.
Why does USDA create or ignore major barriers for small plants, while offering matching grants they know, without fair market access, will only dig the debt deeper?
Why does the administration promote below-cost-of-production beef imports knowing there is no benefit to the consumer, the producer, or local whole animal processors?
Why does USDA allow the by-product, Lean Finely Textured Beef (LFTB – pink slime), to be added to ground beef, or at the very least, not require a label?
Small, non-boxed beef plants feed communities, are potentially more efficient, lower cost, and are for sure more resilient. Small plants provide the ultimate in food security, keep the wealth local, and restore economic viability to the community.
So why doesn’t USDA prioritize meat purchasing from small plants? Why does the military and school lunch programs continue to hire food management contractors that ignore “buy local” mandates, instead procuring the cheapest food possible from global sources? Why hasn’t the problem of kickbacks been addressed?
In March of 2025, the Trump administration canceled $660 million in funding for USDA’s Local Food for Schools program. In November, Colorado passed the ballot initiative, Healthy School Meals for All, intended to feed hungry kids and improve the quality of school meals, including local food purchasing grants. So far, nearly a year later, Ranch Foods Direct, formerly a provider of beef to five of Colorado’s school districts, hasn’t sold a single pound of ground beef to a Colorado school.
During a recent visit to Colorado Springs, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy praised Ft. Carson’s improved meal program, which he claimed was healthier and from local sources. Again, we are not aware of any local purchasing, unless it was beef from Colorado’s JBS or Cargill plants, or lettuce from the Colorado Springs Taylor Farms facility.
For this article and more, go to: https://nobull.mikecallicrate.com/