.Meat cutter Rich Dennison of Salem trims a beef carcass for processing at Rob's Horst Packing...by R. Michael Semple

The appointment book at Rob Donaldson’s meat processing facility, Rob’s Horst Packing, is filled through the end of 2022.

In fact, it’s been like that since June at least, said Donaldson, whose 15 employees work long hours to keep pace with surging demand for processing local livestock — the result, in part, of pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and a change in consumer-buying habits.

Meat processors across Ohio are in the same boat, many with their schedules booked at least 12 months in advance and like Donaldson, are trying to find ways to expand capacity, add workforce and create efficiencies to widen the bottleneck that has farmers waiting in line.

The producers of the protein — from beef cattle to hogs to poultry — also find themselves in an unsteady situation — scheduling slaughter / processing appointments for livestock that hasn’t been born.

Ohio has taken on an effort to combat the congestion and expand capacity and at the U.S. level, the Biden administration has rolled out initiatives to reduce food prices by increasing competition in the meat industry.

LOCAL PROCESSING

Beaver Township’s Rob’s Horst Packing is a custom processor, mostly beef and hogs with the occasional lamb or goat, said Donaldson. At least 90 percent of his business is custom cutting for someone else, a farmer who has sold the animal to a customer.

“And yes, there is a backlog,” Donaldson said.

Before the virus struck, Donaldson said it was typical for the late summer and fall to be booked solid, but things changed quickly. By mid-2021, all of 2022 was already scheduled.

He employs about 15 people, most of whom work 50 to 60 hours per week since the pandemic started.

“Right now I’m pretty well staffed, and we have some good people, but in the past year that has been one of the biggest issues, finding qualified people that actually want to work,” Donaldson said.

The long hours have “been the case since this whole thing started,” he said. “It just exploded because the farmers that have animals ready, they want to get them in because the longer they keep them, the more it costs to feed them.”

One of the contributing factors to the backlog, Donaldson said, is consumers shifted back to buying their meat products from local farmers when meat dried up at the grocery stores. The shortage was caused when larger processors closed plants or reduced production due to the virus, but smaller processors were able to weather the storm.

LOCAL PRODUCTION

Ron Novak raises purebred angus cattle on his farm — Novak Town Line Farm — in Hartford and Vernon townships. At one time, he said, he was birthing 35 to 40 calves a year, but has since cut back.

The backlog in processing, he said, can make it difficult to plan and can add to the cost of raising the animal.

“If I have cattle that are ready to go and they can’t get them to the slaughterhouse, then you just have to wait because you can’t take them off feed because they’ll go backward and the meat won’t be as good,” Novak said. “You have to keep feeding them, so in essence, regardless of what type it is, you may end up with animals that are maybe over fed.”

As far as scheduling processing, many farmers are getting in line for animals yet to be born, which can make things tricky especially given the number of factors that can impact growth.

Those factors include weather, feed quality and genetics, said Chad Bailey, who manages a beef cattle farm in Canfield. They could push his finish time three months ahead or behind the intended schedule, which is typically between 14 and 20 months.

“How in the heck do I know when that thing is going to be done 14 months in advance?” Bailey said. “I have no clue, so how do I schedule this thing and then when I do and it’s not ready or it’s overdone, then what do I do?”

The situation can eat away at profits for the farmer, impact the quality of the meat and affect customer satisfaction.

“If you are grain feeding steers … they can consume 30 pounds a day, which is basically an average 5-gallon bucket. So if they are consuming that every day and you have to keep them an extra three weeks or so, they are going to consume a lot of feed and then maybe they are putting on fat the consumer doesn’t want,” Novak said.

Bailey said, “It’s a catch-22 to hit the target where you want to and be profitable about it and get you customers what they want. It’s just making life for everybody (producers and processors) significantly more difficult.”

Yet, said the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation’s Ty Higgins, Ohio farmers have become resourceful in planning their operations one, two, even three years in advance.

When the pandemic started, “a lot of these farmers saw local interest from people down the road who didn’t know if there was going to be enough meat at the grocery store and so they wanted to make sure they had enough in their freezer, and so they reached out to their local farmer.”

“We saw farmers who did direct to consumer sales, their business boomed, and so they went through their inventory pretty quickly two years ago and planned for that same type of reaction and business model, and grew accordingly,” Higgins said. “And now they have to see if that demand is going to last locally now that we are seeing the meat back on the shelves in the grocery story. That is something every farm has to plan for.”

STATE GRANTS

Rob’s Horst Packing is among five processors in Trumbull and Mahoning counties that have applied for a piece of $10 million set aside in the state budget to help livestock and poultry processing facilities help pay for, in part, new equipment and technology, employee training and / or build new or expand facilities in an effort to increase capacity and put into place more efficient processing methods.

Donaldson said he applied for $250,000. That is the limit per grant the program will provide.

The money would be used for a new packaging machine, a new machine that emulsifies meat for items like snack sticks, hot dogs and sausages and an another machine to process ham.

The facility has the capacity to process about 20 head of cattle and about 25 hogs a week.

The OFBF and the Ohio Association of Meat Processors were big advocates of the funding that, according to the Ohio Department of Development, should start going out to processors as soon as the end of this month.

“Local and regional meat processing is something we have seen as a necessity for a number of years now, and the pandemic has amplified it to where it is starting to take root in Columbus and we’re starting to see funding come out to help these smaller processors give farmers in their region and their communities an option to process their products locally,” said Higgins.

The processing backlog, he said, is a big problem.

“Farmers can’t keep livestock on their farm much more than when they are ready to be processed and so to be able to find extra capacity and keep those livestock moving throughout the system is important,” Higgins said.

Valerie Graham is executive director of the meat processors association.

She said she has already spoken with lawmakers about the possibility of putting more money into the program now, if possible, given the budget is for two years. She also would like to see money set aside to help processors start up.

“That money is to keep the guy who is already in business, well-established, going. I would like to see some type of program we could put out there to help the guy who wants to get into the business,” she said, adding it’s easily a $500,000 investment to start new.

The grants available now can be used to reimburse for the purchase of new or upgraded machinery / equipment and technology products; personnel training costs; plant construction and expansion for confinement, processing and refrigeration; food safety certification costs; and cooperative interstate shipment program costs.

WORKFORCE

Still, “the No. 1 issue … you can ask any processor that we deal with here in the state that is a member of our association, that is not a member of our association … the No. 1 problem we still have is workforce,” Graham said.

She agreed more capacity doesn’t matter as much if there aren’t enough employees to process the livestock.

That’s why Graham said she is working with the Future Farmers of America in Ohio to develop a program that introduces teens to the meat processing industry and prepares them to enter the profession after graduation.

Another program under development is with Ohio State University and the agriculture extensions to teach people the basics of the industry, giving the processor a leg up when hiring and the ability to custom train the person a bit faster.

U.S. INITIATIVES

Last week, President Joe Biden met virtually with independent farmers and ranchers to discuss initiatives to reduce food prices by increasing competition within the meat industry.

Biden is building off a July executive order that directed the Agriculture Department to more aggressively look at possible violations of the 1921 Packers and Stockyards Act, which was designed to ensure fair competition and protect consumers. Meat prices have climbed 16 percent from a year ago, with beef prices up 20.9 percent.

The administration is targeting meat processing plants, which can shape the prices paid to farmers and charged to consumers. The White House issued a fact sheet saying that the top four companies control 85 percent of the beef market. In poultry, the biggest four processing firms control 54 percent of the market. And for pork, the figure is 70 percent for the four biggest firms.

Biden outlined plans to distribute $1 billion from the coronavirus relief package to help independent meat processors expand. He also highlighted money to train workers in the industry and improve conditions, as well as issue new rules for meatpackers and labeling requirements for being designated a “Product of USA.”

The Justice Department and the Agriculture Department will launch a joint effort to make it easier to report anti-competitive actions to the government. The administration will also seek to improve the transparency of the cattle market.

Many industry groups are pushing back against the administration’s planned oversight of the food industry.

Mike Brown, president of the National Chicken Council, said, “This looks like a solution in search of a problem.” He said the administration is using the food industry as a “scapegoat for the significant challenges facing our economy. ”

The OFBF Higgins said the administration’s plan “is a step in the right direction,” but the “proof is in the pudding,” and he hopes the the administration moves quickly. Doing so, he said, would prove to farmers there is help in the long run.

The control had by the four mega processors also concerns Bailey.

“Anytime there are that few that control that much, it should raise concerns to all of us. I don’t care if it’s protein, toilet paper or if it’s ketchup,” Bailey said.

rselak@tribtoday.com

The Associated Press contributed to this story.