Producer Partnership Processing Facility Delivered
Park County, Montana; December 9, 2021 — Young Non-Profit the Producer Partnership excitedly announces the delivery of Montana’s first federally inspected non-profit processing facility.
Since foundation in April 2020, the Producer Partnership has gained support and business at a rapid rate. In Spring 2021, less than a year after foundation, the organization put a down payment on a modular processing facility built by Washington-state based company Friesla, equip to harvest 15 cattle carcasses, five days per week. On December 2, 2021, after months of construction, the first piece of that processing facility was delivered to Partnership headquarters 12 miles east of Livingston, Montana.
“We’re really gaining now,” Producer Partnership President and Founder Matt Pierson said under his breath with hope in his eyes as he looked at the beginnings of the processing facility.
The addition of the Partnership’s processing unit will aid their mission to end hunger in Montana significantly. The issue which brought on the idea to purchase the unit in the first place, Pierson said, was not having enough capacity around the state to fully sustain the organization’s needs.
“I’m incredibly grateful for the processors we’ve worked with so far. They’ve all been helpful and got us in when no one else could. They helped us, and helped feed hungry people in the state,” Pierson said. “But now, we can service ourselves — we’re in control of our own destiny.”
The Producer Partnership’s processing unit will also serve the surrounding community and producers hoping to break into the direct-to-consumer meat market. Pierson said the modular processing facility will be able to process anything from a goat to a bison, creating a larger variety of opportunities for producers. Details about these ventures will be announced in the coming months.
“It’s hard to sum up how fast this has all happened,” Producer Partnership Program Administrator Mayzie Cremer said. “I interviewed Matt for a story when he had a few cows donated in April 2020 and now, I’m taking photos of a processing unit in December 2021. I can’t really put into words how excited I am, or how mind-blowing it’s all been to witness this while story from the very beginning.”
An on-looker at Partnership Headquarters said it best as she watched a crane lower the modular unit onto the concrete slab, “it’s pretty cool to see history being made.”
In a few short months, the Producer Partnership crew hopes to have their doors fully open for processing. This means that an organization which started out as a generous idea organized on a legal pad less than two years ago will have manifested into something big.
“We’re getting it done,” Pierson said with a laugh. “I mean really, it’s happening. We are making it happen, we’re accomplishing our goals.”
