Poultry moving through the Mobile Poultry Processing Unit
active part in making the food they will eat. Also part of the
crew are a contingent from the Junction City Gleaners —
gleaners gather food from fi elds and orchards that otherwise
would go to waste.
“We’ve just been realizing in the last few years how
important your diet is,” says gleaner Cindy Clark of
Cheshire, who adds that she was horrifi ed by factory
farming conditions and practices she learned about from
documentaries that show how thousands of haggard,
debeaked chickens are crammed into rows of small cages
in massive warehouses, never exposed to sunlight and open
air. “You certainly wouldn’t want to go back to commercial
chickens after this. The comparison is dramatic.”
Mobile chicken slaughter
A gleaming white fi fth-wheel trailer sits in a 40-acre fi eld
off of Highway 36 near Junction City that Our Family Farm
shared with another part time farmer during its fi rst two
years of chicken raising. Brandow is jazzed about this trailer,
visibly excited. The 8-by-33-foot trailer represents an Oregon
agricultural milestone and the fruition of years’ worth of
planning and hard work. The trailer, which will be Oregon’s
fi rst licensed mobile poultry processing unit (MPPU) after
passing fi nal inspection later this month, is designed to make
the process of turning live poultry into kitchen-ready meat
with as little stress and trauma for the birds and work crews
alike. Instead of being crated up and trucked more than 30
miles to the closest brick-and-mortar processing plant, the
fowl can rest calmly in their pens until almost the last minute
before workers stage them next to the butchering fl oor.
Inside, two rows of gleaming, stainless steel tables face
each other under banks of fl orescent lights, so that Brandow’s
volunteer crews will be able to socialize while working,
sharing recipes, family gossip and rocking out to music
blaring from a portable stereo system. The atmosphere will
be the polar opposite of the notoriously hazardous conditions
of industrial packing plants, where processing speeds are
kept so high that repetitive stress injuries and accidents are
commonplace.
As YES! Magazine notes, the consolidation of the meat
industry has led to the closing of many small meat processing
plants, “leaving mom-and-pop livestock farmers with few if
any options for turning their animals into legal-to-sell meat.”
Mobile processing units like Brandow’s may be the solution.
According to ODA Food Program Manager Jim Postlewait,
once the facility is licensed each farm that uses it can process
up to 20,000 birds a year under the U.S. Department of
Agriculture (USDA) exemptions and state regulations.
Lauren Gwin, co-coordinator of the Niche Meat Processor
Assistance Network, says that the new mobile unit is one of
only a handful of such facilities nationwide. “Overall, I’d be
surprised if there were 20,” she says. “There are probably a
dozen.”
The Willamettans Family Nudist Club,
where all you need to wear is a smile.
We are now finished with our open house events for this summer having 23 people
show up on our last one. With the weather being so good it isn’t to late to get rid
of those tan lines. The next big event is Labor day weekend (our Sunshine
Festival ) with activities planned for all 3 days. A fashion show, an Elvis night,
games for the kids, a live band on Saturday Night with “Haywire”, and someone is
even going to win a suite on a Bare Necessities Cruise. Be sure to contact our office
to see how you can get involved in all of this.
Farmers raising 1,000 birds or fewer can process their
fowl in open-air abattoirs but can only sell their fryers on the
farm. Under USDA and state regulations, those growing up
to 20,000 fowl a year can build a state-licensed brick-and-
mortar facility or transport their birds to such a facility. But a
facility that meets Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA)
standards is a big investment. With no commercial poultry
processing facilities in the southern Willamette Valley, local
farmers who want to grow more than 1,000 birds or sell off-
premises have to budget the time and money to travel to one
of the 15 facilities elsewhere in Oregon.
‘I don’t think I will buy
another store-bought
bird if I can help it.’
— Lee Jennings, Eugene Country Club Executive Chef
In 2010 Brandow began discussing the benefi ts of a mobile
processing unit with Rachel Prickett of Provenance Farm in
Philomath. After broaching the idea with the ODA, Brandow
recruited Brian Schack of the Schack Farm in Junction City,
who had the skills to construct a mobile processing unit and
a trailer bed on which to build the unit. Working closely
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12 AUGUST 16, 2012
EUGENE WEEKLY
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