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Damian Craft Meats searching for a permanent home

Finding land has been the largest hurdle for a small meat processor. 

Damian Rivera currently works as a custom meat processor, traveling to farms to slaughter animals on site.  For the past eight years, he and his wife Rosemary have been planning to establish a USDA-inspected slaughterhouse and processing facility in southeast Michigan.

“My customers—they’re very pleased but they also wanted me to be able to do a USDA facility so they can retail their meat,” he explains.

USDA’s recent efforts to support a more diverse meat processing sector couldn’t have come at a better time.

“Over the last 18-months, we’ve had $125,000 of grant funds which have really helped to accelerate our planning with a team of experts,” Rosemary says.

The facility is ready to break ground but navigating zoning of a future slaughterhouse has been more than challenging.

“This is to support agriculture,” she says.  “How do we have a vibrant meat industry without a slaughterhouse system as well and processing?  I think that comes down to locating within the communities where we have local farmers.”

The business plans to custom process about 2,000 animals annually for farmers self-distributing and rapidly scale up with demand.

Brownfield interviewed the couple at the recent Michigan Cattlemen’s Association Annual Meeting.