Bloomington meats II is a state-inspected slaughter and processing facility in the rural community of bloomington, wisconsin

Bloomington Meats II LLC received a $200,000 Project Grant award from the US Department of Agriculture Agricultural Marketing Service under the Meat and Poultry Inspection Readiness Grants – Supplemental Funding program (CFDA 10.180). The award will support improvements to Bloomington Meats II's freezer and cooler capabilities in Bloomington, Wisconsin to allow the facility to participate in the Cooperative Interstate Shipment program. Specifically, the funding will go towards replacing an outdated independent compressor system with a more efficient rack system, and installing a new linker for improved operational efficiency and ease of cleaning. These upgrades are necessary for the facility to meet USDA temperature stability requirements for interstate meat shipment. The award period is from September 30, 2021 to September 29, 2024.

Our weekly production is about 10,000 pounds. Each year, we slaughter and process animals from 1,820 unique farmers. We offer 25 varieties of value-added products and offer state-inspected and custom slaughter, although our facility is booked out until may, 2022. We look to participate in the cooperative interstate shipment program, but currently have outdated freezer and cooler capabilities that cannot meet fsis temperature stability requirements, especially in the summer months. To fix this, we propose moving from an old independent compressor arrangement to a modern, efficient rack system. To ensure we can meet modern equipment safety and cleaning requirements, we also propose adding a linker that will be easier to clean and more operationally efficient. While these projects are necessary for our CIS status and expanded capacity, they would be at least 6 to 10 years away from being affordable without this assistance. We forecast that these projects will allow US to increase our revenue by $1.58 million during the grant period, create 5 new jobs, and introduce 12 new varieties of value-added products by giving US theflexibility to expand our throughput and reinvest our grant period revenues into our business' expansion. We also estimate that these improvements will create a new market channel for 371 unique farmers and increase our weekly beef capacity by 4,000 pounds per week and pork capacity by 2,000 pounds per week.