Will USDA Put Your Venison Processor Out of Business?

[Ben Sobieck]

Would new proposed USDA testing requirements have put the small country meat processors who hunters often employ to butcher their wild game out of business?

Read the story here.

[Ohio farms]

I certainly sounds bad for the small scale meat processors.  It's too bad.  They offer a meat that can be free of all the additives that large scale opperations all too frequently use. 
It will not affect who processes my deer since my butcher is me. 

[waldojess]

Definitely.  This winter the processor that I have been using for several years got a "visit" from the USDA with new "requirements".  Bottom line is that they could not afford it and now closed their business which had been handed down through generations.
 
Perhaps good intentions but veery poorly thought out.

[Woods Walker]

The article comes from Salon, which does have an agenda. They want blame "big food", but the real culprit is the government again, which is beginning to be even MORE anti-small business than they've been in the past.

I agree that this will kill small meat processors. But I disagree that it's coming from "big food", because the little meat markets are HIGHER priced than the supermarkets.....they have to be.....so they try to offer different and more gourmet type selections. In may ways the little meat markets HELP the big chains, because the bigger chains offer less expensive options.

It'll just be one more choice we no longer have.........

[Stickman]

Here it is the subject I have been preaching for years. If I kill a deer I process it myself, from kill to freezer. There is no one that I know or work with that does the same. God gave me the meat so I will take care of it myself. Everybody that I know say I will kill it but I will not touch it. So I say go to the store and buy it and stay out of my woods. The thrill of the kill I say money but no brain, fool. WHAT SAY YOU.

[Woods Walker]

I'm like you Stickman. I have always butchered my own game, with the exception of 2 animals when I hunted out of state. One was really good, and the other's results weren't fit for coyote bait. I also believe that butchering my kills are a part of the hunt, just like shooting my bow all year is.

[vipermann7]

We (the US) buys rice from overseas where the sewage ditches over run when it rains, flooding the rice patties with raw sewage. Yeah, makes sense to put good, clean, hard working meat processors out of business.[:@]

[Woods Walker]

EXACTLY! And how about the produce we get from Mexico? All those fruits and vegges are irrigated, and we all know that Mexico's standards of water quality are no where NEAR what our is.

The same "Montezuma's Revenge" that you get from drinking the water down there can also be had by eating the plants irrigated with that same water. If we buy any produce that's grown outside the US we always wash it with a bleach solution first.

[Osty]

I sure hope they don't close down the small plants. It is sad to hear that some have already been shut down. Everything seems to be headed towards a "bigger is better" attitude. Well, it's not always better.

I get limited time to gun hunt in Wisconsin so I get the deer butchered there. Helps save on the time, transporation and facilities. When I hunted in North Carolina, I would take the quarters from our hunts and do my own cutting. A different experience for me but I would cut some steaks and roasts but usually ground it into hamburger.

I like the feeling of cutting my own deer up. However, due to time and limitations, if I get a deer in WI I have to usually get it cut up for the road trip back to NC. Now that I'm in California, I might have to have it shipped. Most of the meat I've had butchered and my family has been good with little or no bad pieces.

[brentru]

Great...more big government here to save us.  What did we do before the government go involved in EVERYTHING? 

I like to butcher what I kill, but the wife has placed the house/garage off-limits to butchering.  Still looking for a friend that has some spare room in his garage.