In Have Knife, Will Travel, Lauren Etter describes how the demand for locally-grown food has created an opportunity for a slaughterhouse on wheels:
Federal rules and consolidation of the nation’s meatpacking industry have made it increasingly costly and cumbersome for small farmers to bring their animals to slaughter. According to the rules, animals intended to be sold as meat must be killed at a slaughterhouse with a federal inspector present. (Some states allow state inspectors to do the job.)But the number of plants under federal inspection has dwindled to 808 nationwide, down from 1,750 three decades ago. Today, many farmers and ranchers must travel hundreds of miles or out-of-state for a legal slaughterhouse. Wyoming, for example, has no plants under federal inspection. It has 27 with state inspectors, but under federal law, the meat can’t be shipped across state lines.
On this island [Lopez Island] off the coast of Washington, a group of about 15 farmers decided that, rather than haul animals to a slaughterhouse in Sumner, Wash., they’d bring a slaughterhouse to their animals.
Some details:
Up rolls a diesel truck pulling an 8-by-12-foot trailer fitted with a sink, a 300-gallon water tank and a cooling locker with carcass hooks. A butcher in a floor-length apron kills, skins, guts and trims the pigs into slabs of meat that are then hung in the cooler and trundled to a packaging plant. Soon the meat is stocked in the freezers of shops on the island and across Washington state and Oregon.
Some hard figures:
To pay for butchers and other expenses, the cooperative charges a fee for each animal killed: $105 for a cow, $53 for a pig, $37 for a sheep.
My favorite line from the video:
The rule is: When they’re no longer cute, they’re ready to eat.