Corning meat processing services is a very small slaughter and processing facility in the rural city ofcorning, iowa

The Department of Agriculture Agricultural Marketing Service awarded Corning Meat Processing Service, Inc. a $200,000 Project Grant under the Meat and Poultry Inspection Readiness Grants – Supplemental Funding program (CFDA 10.180). The grant funds will allow the awardee to upgrade critical facility infrastructure and equipment in order to become an approved cooperative interstate shipment facility and expand sales of smoked meat products into surrounding states. Key activities to be funded include installing pipes, wiring and insulation in the freezer to meet FSIS standards; replacing an outdated smokehouse built in 1987 with a new FSIS-compliant model to increase smoked meat production capacity by 216,000 pounds over the grant period; and acquiring a new slicer to quadruple current slicing capacity to 400 slices per minute and reduce staff cleaning hours by 180 hours. The project aims to create two new jobs and enable the harvesting and processing of over 3.2 million portions of protein for midwestern consumption by the grant's September 2024 completion date.

We aim to become a cooperative interstate shipment facility to pursue market opportunitiesin missouri, kansas, and nebraska, but we lack the critical facility improvements and equipment to meetfsis standards.to become a CIS facility, we propose to install pipes, wiring, and insulation to make our freezer spacefsis-ready. Our current freezer is barely operational and requires US to transfer meat between units.upgrading our freezer will improve fsis compliance by reducing food touchpoints/transfers, increasingproduct quality, and boosting operational efficiency by 20 percent annually. Our current smokehouse is a major revenue generator, accounting for at least 40 percent of our currentrevenue. We aim to seize opportunities to grow smoked product sales by $100,000 in surrounding states, but our current smokehouse was built in 1987 and would not meet fsis requirements. We proposeinstalling a new, fsis-compliant smokehouse that will increase capacity by 216,000 pounds of meat overthe grant period.at 400 slices/minute, the proposed new slicer would also quadruple our current capacity. The machine willalso be easier to clean, which will increase our food safety, ensure rigorous fsis compliance, and reducestaff cleaning hours by 180 hours over the grant period.altogether, this project will create 2 new jobs and allow US to harvest and process 3,204,000 portions ofprotein for consumption across the midwest during the grant period.