By David Condos
Utah is home to 335,000 beef cattle, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. But for the state's thousands of cattle ranchers, there haven’t been many local avenues for getting their beef to market.
Instead, ranchers often send their livestock as far away as California or Texas to be processed, said Utah Beef Producers owner Henry Barlow. That’s money leaving the state of Utah.
“When a rancher has 100 head [of cattle] coming off the mountain and he has no place to get them harvested, his choice has simply been to sell them out of state. … So there's been a massive need.”
As a cattle-producing state, Utah ranks in the middle of the pack nationally — 27th — but ranching still adds up for the state economy. According to USDA data, Utah cattle and calves generated around a half billion dollars in 2021, accounting for roughly a quarter of the state’s gross income from agriculture.
That’s why Barlow opened a new beef processing facility in the town of Richfield in Sevier County. The plant joins a very small group of federally inspected beef processing facilities in the state.
Harlow, who also raises cattle in Sanpete County, said the new plant’s immediate impact will be to help ranchers keep more money in their wallets. They often have to wait in line for several months to get their livestock processed at out-of-state facilities, he said, which costs more to feed the cattle in the meantime.
That’s on top of the steep price of trucking a bunch of large animals across the country.
“By the time you ship a calf back East, finish it there, harvest it there and ship it out West … think about the transportation cost,” Barlow said.
“A lot of the steaks that hit the coast and the casinos and the restaurants in those big cities in the West, they've got 3,000 miles on that.”
In addition to saving ranchers money, increased local beef production could also benefit Utah consumers, said Kaylie Gines, co-owner at Heritage Craft Butchers in Orem. About half of the beef they sell is locally sourced, she said, and the shop has seen a greater demand for more.
“People are interested in learning about where their meat comes from, the different cuts, the different cooking techniques. … It's really fun as a butcher to be that educational piece.”
As consumers find out about what goes into raising the beef they eat, she said they’re learning that the quality of the animal’s life can impact the quality of the final product — and they are willing to pay for local meat. To keep up with demand, the butcher shop plans to open a second location in Spanish Fork this fall.
It’s part of a larger trend toward connecting ranchers with customers nearby. For example, a 2022 Kansas State University study found consumer interest in buying meat directly from local producers greatly increased in 2020-2021 compared with previous years.
The addition of new processing facilities like the one in Richfield won’t directly help her business, Gines said, since the shop’s staff cuts its meat in-house. But as far as she is concerned, it’s all part of a positive shift toward butchering more local beef in Utah.
“It's a craft that was dying but is in an upswing right now.”
Keeping more cattle in Utah could also boost rural economies that have traditionally depended on agriculture, said Sevier County Commissioner Ralph Brown.
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