Meat Locker Still Running Above Capacity

The employees of the Corning Meat Processing Service are gathered around the cut table on a Wednesday morning, cutting meat for a customer who had a steer processed with the Iowa-based company. Their goal is to finish breaking these sides down along with the meat from two more steers by the end of the day. Tomorrow they will return to process three more animals from a different customer. The locker has been on this pace for two years, since the COVID-19 pandemic put kinks in the meat supply chain which forced, producers and customers to explore new delivery methods including a direct line from the farm to the table. .

But it wasn’t always this busy for this small town locker. 

David Walter, Corning Meat Processing “Come in March, April, May has always been kind of a open time. We didn't know we'd some days we'd cut every, every day. Uh, we'd be booked out maybe a couple weeks at the most. We went from nothing to do just very little to do to book clerk full April, May out for, I went out as far as a year and 10 months book solid, full, uh, and with a waiting list of probably about 80 people with 120 head livestock wanting in. So it went absolutely from nice, not, you know, like to be a little busier to absolutely overloaded.”           

The new demand for local meat extended more than 80 miles away Adams County. 

David Walter, Corning Meat Processing “We have a lot of people coming from Omaha or Des Moines out of the cities that were looking for meat because they couldn't buy meat. Uh, in the stores, they were limited to one or two or three pieces in the stores. Uh, so they started digging out into the country, looking for, you know, quarters and halves and porks, so it, yeah, they it's extended it way out and brought a lot new people in that's never, ever experienced a butcher shop.”

That jump in demand has meant a 40 percent increase in the number of animals slaughtered at the small facility, and a similar increase in the pounds of meat cut and wrapped by its employees. 

David Walter has been in the meat business since 1985 when he began working at the Corning locker. A decade and a half later, he became the owner, and he was glad he had the long lead time to learn the business.

David Walter, Corning Meat Processing “I worked for my boss 15 years. I don't regret a time of it. Yeah. You can get by with seven, eight years. It's like I told Jacob, you know, he works with me for 5, 6, 7 years. He's really digging in and finding and learning all about it. You walk into it blindsided. You're gonna get blindsided. It's just, it's how it's gonna happen.”

Jacob Cross started working for Walter as a teenager, and returned two years ago as a fulltime employee. Cross is now planning on buying the locker when Walter retires. 

Jacob Cross, Corning Meat Processing “We have people that come even from when I worked here back in 2005, still coming, you know? And so, and Dave's been here a long time before me, you know, and people's grandparents, fathers now, sons, you know, and now their kids are starting to come and they've seen all of them, you know, they remember, you know, so that's kind of cool to be a part of something that generations have always came to this place.”

The building has been a meat locker since the 1950’s, and Walter has continued to renovate the facility. A new refrigeration system was added in 2019, and a Value Added Producer Grant from the USDA financed the purchase of a meat slicer and electric smoker. The tools will help expand the menu into ready-to eat products they currently don’t sell to consumers.

David Walter, Corning Meat Processing “When I hired him two years ago to come in and really follow my footsteps and push me to and push things to go and get things to go farther and let him either manage or own this thing down the road. Uh, we're looking at doing some new, new brats, things for the case to sell, uh, new sticks, different things that way.” 

Local lockers are important to their communities, but the number of animals coming in the door varies more than some new operators might expect. Walter says those looking to get into the business often are in for a surprise. 

David Walter, Corning Meat Processing “‘Do you realize what's coming?’ I said, ‘Do you know what's happening and what it is to this business?’ And so many of 'em don't know what's what's going on and what it is. It's just, there's more to it. That side of not, it could go back the other way, just as fast as it is busy as we are, which is, can be devastating.”

Walter has watched his the meat processing business ebb and flow with the local weather but the effect on the number of animals coming in the door has often been delayed by several years. A southwest Iowa drought in 2012 forced many cattle producers to shrink their herds. Two years later, when those missing cattle would have been ready for harvest, Walter and his employees found themselves without animals to process.  

Jacob Cross, Corning Meat Processing “There'd be weeks up, it cut nothing on the table, nothing at all. It would just be, you know, maintenance would Walker, you know, try to fix up some things that needed, done, um, painted some, you know, made the place, look a little nicer and did some odds and ends some extra stuff.” 

Today, demand from consumers is still strong, but for some the price of a quarter or side of beef can be a source of lead to sticker shock.

David Walter, Corning Meat Processing “A lot of those city people reached out when the fee prices started climbing back up and they had to pay out 22 or $2,400 and one lump sum. A lot of them people understood and worked with it, but a lot of 'em didn't understand and could do it because they were used to putting out $150 or $200 a week for, for meat and you're throwing it all out at once. So it's the budget thing has kind of affected some people.” 

Iowa has lost 20 twenty percent of its small to mid-sized, locally owned meat lockers since 2010. The succession plan that Cross and Walter have created means that Corning Meat Processing will hopefully buck the trend of small towns losing their lockers as longtime owners retire. 

David Walter, Corning Meat Processing “We're trying to get ways figured out to get people interested in this business, uh, because it's needed big time.”

For Market to Market, I’m Peter Tubbs.