030102 Meat Program Helps Minnesota Farmers

Melrose, MN - Jim and Helen Poepping have been raising hogs and selling pork products for more than 20 years, relying on heavy word-of-mouth to lure customers down the long gravel road that leads to their farm.

But their good reputation and the quality of their sausages, spare ribs and bacon wasn't always enough for people to forego the convenience of their local grocer and drive 30 or 40 miles to the Poepping farm.

"The gravel road was a drawback for some people," Jim Poepping joked. "If you don't get repeat customers, you don't have a business."

The Poeppings solved their location problem three years ago by joining a startup state meat inspection program. The program lets small and medium-sized farmers get their meat approved and onto the shelves of grocery stores — an opportunity previously only available to larger, USDA-inspected plants.

Now products from the family's label, Pep's Porks, can be found in about a dozen stores throughout Stearns County. Jim Poepping says his hog farm is processing twice as much meat as before -- 1,200 hogs a year -- and profit has grown by nearly 30%.

"It's expanded our business, but it's also made it a little more convenient for our customers to get ahold of our product," Poepping said. "The time was just right to do it."

When the state program kicked off in January 1999, only one meat processor signed up, putting out about 100 pounds of meat a month. Today, there are 67 processors statewide, churning out nearly 9 million pounds, or $40 million in product, a year.

That's less than 5% of all the meat processed in Minnesota each year. But, for farmers like the Poeppings, a little is a lot.

"They chew off as big a bite as they can handle," said Willis Wesley, a state supervisory inspector, as he inspected a slaughtered hog recently at the Poepping farm.

Wesley, who worked for the USDA for 30 years, says the program is good for smaller operations because of flexible scheduling of slaughter days and more daily interaction.

RETURN TO HOME PAGE

E-mail: sflanagan@sprintmail.com