Ranchers open new USDA-certified slaughter facility after decade of effort
Published 11:48 am Monday, July 20, 2026
1/4
Cody and Jen Hoseth stand in the middle of the Lone Crow Meat Processing slaughter facility the afternoon of June 24, in Eltopia, Wash. It took the first-generation ranchers nearly a decade to build the new USDA-certified facility, which was slated to slaughter its first cow July 21. (Matthew Weaver/Capital Press)
ELTOPIA, Wash. — It took Cody and Jen Hoseth nearly a decade to open their new USDA-certified slaughter facility.
The Lone Crow Meat Processing facility was slated to slaughter its first cow July 21. It sits on a nearly 200-acre site in Eltopia, Wash., about 31 miles north of the Tri-Cities.
Getting USDA approval took a long time.
“This was attempt number nine to get this kill floor; I really just failed my way into finally getting a kill floor for almost 10 years,” Cody Hoseth said. “There were quite a few times and spots where I probably should have quit, and I didn’t … I always tell my wife, ‘A smarter person wouldn’t have done it.’”
“It’s relieving,” Jen Hoseth said.
When they first started selling meat, they sold at farmers markets and parking lots. When they got their own shop, they were still outsourcing for slaughter.
“Now that we have this, we’ve finally built the stairs,” she said. “There’s no gaps, we have it from start to finish.”
So-called “kill floors” are highly specialized, and difficult to get local permitting. It took nine months to get a permit just to build the facility.
“There aren’t that many people that genuinely know that much about them,” Cody Hoseth said. “Finding enough people that know anything about any part of it is significantly challenging.”
Finding bank support can also be tough.
“Any time you do a project, you need permits and money,” Cody Hoseth said. “Well, if those two things are massively challenging, it makes the project itself hard.”
He did a lot of ag-related or ag-adjacent work in the meantime, he said.
“This thing has worked less days than it hasn’t worked, and I was fine with that the whole time,” he said. “The whole time it wasn’t working, I was just like, ‘One day it will work.’ I kept at it, kept at it and kept at it, and then finally one day, it actually did.”
Meet Lone Crow Ranch
At 17, Cody Hoseth knocked on the door of a neighboring rancher and asked to work for him to learn the cattle business.
He remembers having a “burning inkling” while delivering cattle to a “wild card packer” feedlot.
“I just wanted to build something big like that,” he said. “I never really thought I would get this far.”
Today, Cody, 31, and Jen, 29 own 400 acres, lease 2,000 acres and run 1,000 head of cattle. They have two sons, Wyatt, 4, and Weston, who turns 2 in August.
They keep meat markets in Loon Lake, Wash., and Pasco, Wash., and a USDA butcher shop in Connell, Wash.
Their total operation employs about 25 workers.
Cody took over the Eltopia site in 2021, purchasing a portion. Last year, he bought the remaining portion. They partner with rancher/consultant Samuel Cossio.
The Hoseths estimate the new facility cost $700,000, with Cody doing all of the construction work. For its size, the cost should be three to four times more, Cody Hoseth said.
He expects another five to six large area family ranches will bring their cattle to the Eltopia site for finishing, slaughter and/or processing.
“I would really like other ranchers and farmers to know that we are open to do business with them,” Cody Hoseth said. “This plant has a lot of capacity to support other producers.”
The couple expects to slaughter 10 to 15 head per day.
How big is their storage capacity?
“We’d love to find out,” Jen Hoseth said.
First-generation ranchers
Neither grew up in agriculture.
“Back then, Cody didn’t even know what to ask,” Jen Hoseth said. “Just like with everything else that we have, we had to build it from the ground up, because we didn’t have the money to buy anything.”
“We had to build one because there wasn’t one to buy,” Cody Hoseth added.
They note that many “new” slaughter plants are usually existing facilities purchased by multi-generational ranches with financing “behind the scenes.”
The couple offers guidance to brand-new meat sellers.
“I feel like, given the right circumstances, more people would build these,” Cody Hoseth said of the new slaughter facility. “But if you underestimate how hard these are to build – I’ve actually seen some very wealthy people try to build these and fail.”
‘Real economics’
“It’s pretty impressive to see somebody like Cody come in, produce livestock, slaughter and sell the end-product,” said Colorado Springs, Colo., rancher, butcher and “rural advocate” Mike Callicrate. “In fact, today it’s the only thing that works. If you’re missing any piece of the process, you can’t make it.”
Under a model like the Hoseths’, about 80% of the consumer dollar goes back to the farm and ranch gate, compared to 27% to 50% under the national beef market model, he said.
“The real importance of Cody’s model is to show what the real economics should look like for the producer, people in the middle and the end-consumer,” Callicrate said.
New USDA-certified facilities require too much effort, work and skill to be commonplace, he said.
“A person needs to be young, aggressive and full of energy — otherwise, there’s just too many moving parts to look after,” Callicrate said.
Inspiring new ranchers
A new USDA-inspected beef processing option is rare, agrees Bridget Coon, Benge, Wash., rancher, restaurant owner and Washington Farm Bureau first vice president.
“I know they’ve gone through a lot of local, up to federal, hurdles to make that happen,” Coon said. “I’m not surprised it took a long time; also not surprised that they are actually bringing it to fruition.”
Having another option that’s “geographically convenient” is something area ranchers don’t take for granted, Coon added.
The farm bureau took a group of younger regional farmers and ranchers to tour the Hoseths’ processing facility in 2025.
“They provide inspiration, particularly to people who maybe didn’t grow up in ranching, but have a passion for it and want to be part of the future of the cattle industry,” Coon said. “There’s a lot that people who come from other backgrounds and bring it into ranching can offer to everyone. (The Hoseths are) seeing the needs and filling them, which is always the right answer in business.”
40-year perspective
“There’s probably plenty of people willing to do the ranching thing, to some extent,” Cody Hoseth said. “But it’s a matter of finding someone that’s willing to do it that has enough capital to be able to do it. That’s where it starts getting hard. It takes millions of dollars worth of assets just to run a ranch that’s big enough to make a living.”
What would he say to a 17-year-old kid who knocks on his door today, looking to get into ranching?
“If you’re not motivated enough to think about this in a 40-year perspective, I just would recommend doing something else, because you might just have to wait,” he said. “This could take you the rest of your life to pay for itself. There has to be another fire or drive inside of you other than money. Otherwise it just won’t work.”