This is the idea that caused Cheryl Ouellette, of Pig Lady’s Summit farm in Wash., to start the Puget Sound Meat Producers Cooperative to run a traveling slaughterhouse. The mobile abattoir consists of a 45-foot-long trailer where livestock are dispatched and made ready for packaging, all without placing a hoof off the farm. Some of the area producers, especially ones who raise a variety of meat animals, are finally finding a way to run a financially soluble business.
The idea is catching on: By fall of 2010, the USDA recognized nine federally inspected “mobile slaughter units.” Coupled with grants from the Rural Development Agency and a compliance guide from the Food Safety and Inspection Service, mobile abattoirs are geared to be part of the answer to helping small processors and establishments reclaim local meat processing systems.
