Spruce hill meats, after being established in 2020, has spent the last 10 months renovating and modernizing its facility in an effort to become a federally-inspected meat processing facility

The Department of Agriculture Agricultural Marketing Service awarded Spruce Hill Meats LLC $200,000 under the Meat and Poultry Inspection Readiness Grants – Supplemental Funding program (CFDA 10.180) to modernize its meat processing facility in Bowman, ND. With the funding, Spruce Hill Meats will upgrade meat smoking equipment and add a smoking room, purchase key equipment like a vacuum tumbler and carcass splitting saw, install a table top vacuum packaging machine and point of sale system, and hire a consultant to develop food safety protocols. These improvements aim to increase the facility's processing capacity by 25% and allow the company to offer both retail and wholesale meat products as a federally inspected facility. The award period runs from September 30, 2021 through September 29, 2024.

With funding from the meat & poultry readiness grant, spruce hill meats strives to meet the maximum capacity of its facility and expand its business to include retail and wholesale offerings as a federally inspected facility. The final stages of this endeavor include: the modernization of meat smoking equipment and the addition of a meat smoking room; the upgrade of key equipment necessary for safety, efficiency, and quality, including a vacuum tumbler and carcass splitting saw; the addition of a table top vacuum packaging machine to improve packaging and labelling; the installation of a service scale featuring operator and customer displays as well as a digital point of sale system to establish retail sale capabilities and improve customer experiences; the addition of up to four new full-time positions; and finally, the hiring of a consultant to train employees and develop protocols to meet federal inspection requirements. With these improvements, spruce hill meats anticipates a 25% increase in processing capacity as well as a 50% increase in staff, from 8 full-time employees to up to 12. By becoming a federally-inspected facility, expanding to offer retail and wholesale options, and modernizing equipment, spruce hill meats will drastically reduce occupational hazards, raise business revenue, improve customer experiences, expand service and product offerings, and increase meat processing capacity to better serve local agricultural producers and communities.