Farmer-to-Market Website: A Meat Processing and Delivery Resource Survey

Perry works at the Kelmscott Rare Breeds Foundation, a non-profit institution established to preserve rare breeds of domestic animals. Kelmscott is also a working farm, and as such produces many animals each year for slaughter and sale.

In arranging for slaughter, processing, and distribution of the meat, Perry and the other people at Kelmscott found that information concerning slaughtering facilities was scattered and difficult to come by. Their SARE project involved distributing questionnaires to the eight USDA-certified abattoirs currently (June, 2000) operating in Maine, and conducting follow-up phone interviews and site visits. The information they collected, such as the numbers and kinds of animals accepted at each slaughterhouse, fees, killing methods, whether transportation is provided, and so on, has been compiled and posted on the Kelmscott website, at www.kelmscott.org; a somewhat abbreviated version is available in hard copy.