It was at the February’s City Council meeting (2022) that Morrie Marks, a locker plant USDA inspector with over 25 years as a meat cutter, spoke to the Council on having a locker plant in the Marcus Business Park south of the MMCRU bus barn.
There could be as many as 10 to 15 cattle a week and 20 hogs a week. If you brought in an animal for slaughter and only wanted one half of it, the rest would be USDA inspected and sold to the general public. Only if you didn’t want all of it would it be sold publicly. (This was compared to the locker plant at Hostein.) The remains of slaughtered animals would be kept in a special place in the plant and picked up the same day by someone who uses these remains.
Digging would take place June (2022) and concrete in October with construction going on until opening date in June of 2023 with his son, Jordan in charge of the plant.
It was approved by the Council as we haven’t had a meat shop since the 1990’s. In August (2022) there was a ground-breaking for “Jordan’s Meat Market’. The building is up now and is awaiting Jordan’s graduation at Iowa State University as he is expecated to operate the facility. Jordan Marks is a fourth-generation meat cutter whose family is well known in our area as they run Marks Meat Processing Center in Remsen. There could be 8 or 9 employed at this Meat Market.
USDA Rural Development on January 5, 2023 awarded an $800,000 low-interest loan to help build Jordan’s Meat Market. This loan will cover construction of the meat locker as well as providing working capital. The loan is 8% of the USDA’s $9.6 million initiative to help the nation’s meat supply.
USDA Secretary, Tom Vilsack has stated that USDA is putting the needs of farmers, ranchers and consumers at the beginning of the Biden-Harris administration’s work in order to strengthen the resiliency of America’s food supply chain while promoting competition. Jordan’s Meat Market was included in a list of 25 others that received the loan.
The USDA had taken an approach to coordinate ways to deliver more opportunities and fairer prices for producers. It intends to give people access to healthier foods, and eliminate bottle-necks in the food supply chain that will hopefully lower prices for consumers.
A locker plant like this one is hoped to be an economic impact to our community.