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Sheila McCoy / Stories of the Heartland
Dustin Wiese, farmer and board member of the Headwaters Beef Cooperative, spoke about the benefits to rural beef producers of having another meat processing facility to bring their cattle to. Pictured with Wiese( center) are his sons, Owen and Derek Wiese.
Hope on the horizon:
New meat processing plant to benefit rural communities
BY SHEILA MCCOY STORIES OF THE HEARTLAND
A
multitude of people gathered in the Industrial Park in Staples, June 6, to share the excitement of ground being broken to pave the way for Farmers Union Processing + Meats, a state-of-the-art United States Department of Agriculture( USDA)- compliant meat processing facility.
During the groundbreaking ceremony, Sen. Amy Klobuchar reminded people of what started the process of the new build- the struggle many farmers had during the pandemic and even before where there weren’ t enough meat processing facilities.
“ It was a huge problem for the farmers that they couldn’ t get things done and it was a huge problem on the supply chain and so for me, that same time period( 2019), that’ s when it sort of came to my mind how important it was to have more meat processing in general for our farmers and for consumers,” she said.
At the same time, Klobuchar and Sen. Rand Paul worked for various colleges to receive funding for their meat cutting programs.
Klobuchar said the 8,000-square-foot facility will process primarily beef and pork and will employ up to 15 people once it is fully operational. In addition, Farmers Union Processing + Meats will also partner with Central Lakes College and Ridgewater College to provide training and internship opportunities for students who are studying meat processing and butchery. The goal, Klobuchar said, is to have the facility fully operational by Jan. 26, 2026.
Looking at what the new facility will do for the rural community and surrounding areas, Klobuchar said the facility will serve area producers with the capacity to process up to 15 beef cattle or 30 hogs per day when it is fully operational. Hy-Tech C-Tec Construction of Brainerd is the lead contractor on the $ 8 million project and Widseth is the project architect. The construction started early this summer.
“ So this isn’ t just some, you know, small light flight. It’ s a big deal and the Farmers Union is putting the funding behind it and then for the state … we really hope that this could be a model as well as for the rest of the country, because when I talked about that supply
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