The Kruisselbrink family of Woodstock is part owner of a beef processing plant in Fort Pierre, S.D. that will enable the family to sell its beef directly to consumers. Pictured are (l-to-r) Austin, Allison, their children Wyatt, Harper and Hailey, and Austin’s parents Kim and Brad Kruisselbrink. Contributed photo
Brad Kruisselbrink, his daughter-in-law Allison and his son Austin, of Woodstock, stand in the refrigerated truck that they use to bring back custom beef orders from a processing plant in Fort Pierre, S.D. of which they are part owners. Contributed photo
Earlier this year Austin and Allison Kruisselbrink and Austin’s parents Brad and Kim Kruisselbrink who raise beef cattle near Woodstock became part owners of a beef processing plant in Fort Pierre, S.D. called U.S. Beef Producers.
Kim Ulmer, a beef producer who lives in Aberdeen, S.D., learned that the plant was for sale last fall and became interested. Ulmer said he was becoming frustrated with the prices producers were being paid for their cattle and thought maybe he should get involved with the processing side of the business.
He put down $200,000 on Dec. 31 for an option to buy the plant and started researching what it would take to operate it and trying to round up investors. Ulmer ended up with 14 investors from Minnesota, South Dakota and North Dakota. Five of them, including he and his wife Jackie and the Kruisselbrinks are equity investors who run the business, and are either cattle producers or feeders. The other nine are financing partners. The five equity investors have a conference call every week and help manage the plant.
“We’ve been looking for an opportunity like this for a while,” Austin said.
He said the meat packing industry in the U.S. is largely controlled by a handful of companies that have high profit margins. Meanwhile, the producers aren’t paid enough to break even.
“They’re screwing the cattle producer and they’re screwing the consumer,” Austin said.
Austin supports a country of origin label for beef products because some of the big packing companies are Brazilian-owned and ship meat to the U.S. and repackage it as a product of the U.S., which he said misleads consumers about the origins of the product. He said consumers should know where the products come from and be able to chose if they want to buy U.S.-raised beef.
Kruisselbrink said he saw the processing plant as a way to provide quality beef products to consumers and get a fair price for the producers.
“This investment gives us the ability to butcher our own animals and sell to consumers,” said Allison. “In a time when it is impossible to find locker space this is imperative to our farm operation.”
The Kruisselbrinks’ goal is to be able to butcher about 10 of their animals a month at the processing plant. That’s just a small portion of the Kruisselbrinks’ roughly 2,000 head of cattle, but Austin said it will help them have more control over their product and be more profitable.
U.S. Beef Producers is also in the process of becoming United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) certified at which time they hope to sell to grocery stores and restaurants. They were hoping to accomplish that by June, but it hasn’t yet happened.
“It’s a tougher process than we anticipated,” Austin said.
The Kruisselbrinks also plan to create their own box beef program to sell retail beef under their own personal label, “Over the Brink Beef.” That also requires USDA certification.
In the meantime the Kruisselbrinks and the other producers involved are able to sell custom processed beef raised on their farms and processed at the plant they own.
“Currently, we have 20 people on our wait list for quarters, halves and whole beef, proving the demand for this farm to table market,” Allison said.
People can contact any of the producers involved in U.S. Beef Producers through its website at usbeefproducers.com to place orders.
Ulmer said that if everything goes as planned, the group can help others open up producer-owned processing plants in other areas. He envisions a franchise situation in which the plants would have the U.S. Beef Producers name and different investors. Eventually he said he’d like to see multiple U.S. Beef Producer facilities in every state where cattle are raised.
Ulmer is already planning and raising funds for a second facility in Huron that will be larger than the Fort Pierre plant. He said he’s about a quarter of the way to his fund raising goal.
The Link LonkJuly 11, 2020 at 08:09PM
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Local beef producers become part owners of South Dakota processing plant - Pipestone County Star
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