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.
