June 24, 2016
CapitalPress.com
3
Rain takes a bite out of cherry crop
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press
Shannon Hughes, manager of the Custom Meat Co. in Eugene, Ore., speaks about the company’s
closure on June 17. Oregon slaughter facilities are under pressure as owners retire or die and replace-
ments are hard to fi nd.
Slaughter facilities
face challenges
Slaughter, processing
skills tough to
replace, expert say s
Oregon slaughter and processor operations
Slaughterhouse
Poultry/rabbit slaughter
250
223
176: Down 21% from 2000
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
After roughly four decades
in operation, the Custom Meat
Co. of Eugene, Ore., shut
down on June 17.
While employees and cli-
ents still hope the mobile
custom slaughter and meat
processing company will be
bought and re-opened, they
acknowledge the business
fell into disarray after owner
Victor Hastings succumbed to
cancer in January.
Hastings didn’t leave a
will and key licenses for the
facility lapsed, contributing
to its closure, said Shannon
Hughes, the company’s man-
ager.
Unless an investor takes
over the company, Keith Coo-
per, who raises hogs at nearby
Sweetbriar Farms, is worried
about traveling much greater
distances to process carcasses.
The facility and its workers
were instrumental in helping
Cooper prepare meat for his
customers, often when time
was in short supply.
“I probably couldn’t have
existed or grown my business
to the extent I had without the
assistance of Custom Meat or
Vic Hastings,” he said.
The problems encoun-
tered by the Custom Meat
Co. provide an example of the
pressures faced by Oregon’s
slaughter and meat processing
facilities.
As the owners of such com-
panies retire or die, fi nding re-
placements is diffi cult — both
because their skills are rare
and because fewer people are
willing to do such work, said
Lauren Gwin, an Oregon State
University professor and di-
rector of the Niche Meat Pro-
cessor Assistance Network.
Custom stationary slaughter
Custom mobile slaughter
Custom meat processor
200
150
100
50
Source: Oregon Department of Agriculture
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
0
2000
’05
“It is a brutal job to go out
and kill things all day long,”
Gwin said. “It’s not the kind
of thing younger people are
interested in doing.”
Since 2000, the number of
mobile and stationary custom
slaughter facilities in Oregon
has dropped more than 30 per-
cent, from 93 to 63, according
to data from the Oregon De-
partment of Agriculture. Such
operations kill animals for
their owners, rather than for
meat resale.
In that 15 years, the number
of USDA-inspected slaughter-
houses — which can process
livestock for the wholesale
meat market — has fallen 25
percent, from 16 to 12.
Apart from the physical
hardship of killing, bleeding
out and skinning livestock, the
job is often fi nancially chal-
lenging as well, said Gwin.
An owner of a mobile
slaughter truck, for example,
must pay for its fuel and up-
keep as well as disposing of
offal and maintaining the ap-
propriate licenses, she said.
“It’s hard to make it pay,”
Gwin said.
Changes in the overall beef
industry have also affected
slaughter facilities, said Jerry
Haun, owner of Haun’s Meat
’10
2015
and Sausage and executive
secretary of the Northwest
Meat Processors Association.
Cow-calf producers often
prefer to sell cattle in large
lots instead of selling individ-
ual animals at auction to lo-
cal landowners, he said. With
fewer locals raising beef, the
demand for local slaughter fa-
cilities decreased as well.
As the price of cattle has
weakened recently, though,
more cow-calf producers are
again willing to sell “oddball
calves” to backyard farmers,
Haun said.
Interest in organic, grass-
fed and farm-to-table beef
also indicates that the local
slaughter industry will remain
viable, he said. “They’re not
just catch-words, it’s reality.
It’s something we’ve been
doing for decades but it’s now
the hip thing.”
Not all types of meat fa-
cilities in Oregon are on the
decline.
The number of custom
meat processors that don’t
kill animals but cut up car-
casses has stabilized at above
80 operations in recent years,
though it’s still down from
roughly 100 operations in
the early 2000s, according to
ODA data.
WENATCHEE, Wash.
— A light but stellar Wash-
ington cherry crop has been
damaged by heavy rain, and
while some fruit was ru-
ined overall industry losses
may not be as large as fi rst
thought.
What previously was esti-
mated as a crop of 18.3 mil-
lion, 20-pound boxes now is
probably a 17-million-box
crop, said B.J. Thurlby, pres-
ident of Northwest Cherry
Growers, the industry pro-
motional organization.
A total of 7.3 million box-
es had been shipped from the
start of the season, May 18,
through June 20. Virtually all
were picked before the June
18 rain, Thurlby said.
“It wasn’t a horrible rain
storm. It could have been
worse. It stayed cool and the
wind blew,” he said.
Wind helps dry cherries
and cool weather afterward
reduces crop-ruining crack-
ing.
Two weeks of cool weath-
er before the rain is push-
ing the production peak of
500,000-plus boxes per day
out to the Fourth of July, he
said.
The Fourth is a traditional
marketing target, and there
still will be plenty of fruit
for promotions and ad-prices
remaining in place, Thurlby
said.
Heavy
rain
struck
throughout Central Wash-
ington from Oregon to Can-
ada. Picking mostly ceased
through Monday as growers
and packers analyzed how
much fruit could be salvaged.
“Cracks in the stembel
are legal to pack if they are
small and heal,” said Norm
12-month waiver
Dan Wheat/Capital Press
Andy Handley shows stembel cracking, ruining his Sweetheart
cherries in East Wenatchee, Wash., on June 20. Heavy rain
June 18 split a lot of cherries in Central Washington.
Gutzwiler, a Wenatchee
grower.
“If prices are right, it can
be sorted and make money
for the grower. If not, they
go to the processor (for brin-
ing) or you leave them on the
tree,” Gutzwiler said.
It’s a matter of economics
when it comes to high-tech
packing house sorting and if
prices are too low growers
shouldn’t be picking, he said.
“Frankly, prices will have
to go higher than they are,”
Gutzwiler said, adding pro-
duction and marketing will
be in limbo a few days.
Gutzwiler, Thurlby and
others said fruit size and
quality had been exceptional
until the rain.
Damage ranges up to 45
percent but will clean up in
a week and later fruit will
mature with no damage, said
Roger Pepperl, marketing
director at Stemilt Growers
LLC in Wenatchee, the na-
tion’s largest sweet cherry
producer.
“We are extremely opti-
mistic with good fruit size,
lots of Skeenas (variety)
coming on with great fl avor
and good demand,” Pepperl
said.
Fourth of July cherries
will be “awesome” and
Stemilt will offer a special
Kyle’s Pick brand, named
for Stemilt co-owner Kyle
Mathison, with high sugars
and fi rmness and large size,
he said.
Thurlby said two large
Skeena growers in the Ba-
sin lost 20 percent. Skeena,
a Canadian variety, is more
susceptible to cracking.
Wenatchee’s Stemilt Hill
orchards sustained up to 40
percent damage and a larg-
er grower in the Okanogan
about 5 percent, he said.
Rain was less in The
Dalles, Ore., said Brenda
Thomas, president of Or-
chard View Farms Inc., Ore-
gon’s largest cherry grower.
Damage is manageable with
the company’s new high-
tech cherry sorter a huge
help, she said.
Normal 10 percent cul-
lage has risen to 20 to 30
percent, she said. The crop is
later than Washington’s with
about two-thirds to go, she
said.
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