At Republic Food Enterprise Center our goal is to be sure we accomplish our mission of helping our local communities to receive farm fresh food. Our team has many tools and resources to help others succeed.
Matt Pounds, a farmer based in the Ohio Valley, works directly with the Grow Ohio Valley non-profit organization that supplies low income populations in the area with high quality food. The majority of Matt’s food production from his 25-acre farm goes to Grow Ohio Valley, so he works to keep his production costs as low as he can in order to provide food to those who need it at a lower cost.
To help Matt keep his costs low, Republic Food Enterprise Center worked with him to provide our mobile poultry slaughter unit which helped reduce his costs immensely. Matt’s biggest expense is raising his Cornish X Hens and the closest commercial slaughterhouse that can take in the volume of chickens that he has is an hour and a half away. Adding together transportation costs and costs of using the facility, Matt was not able to provide the poultry to those in the Ohio Valley at a cost he was comfortable with. When Republic Food Enterprise Center was able to step in and bring our mobile poultry slaughter unit to his farm we were able to reduce his costs tremendously. Allowing Matt to do this on his farm took his production cost of $8 per pound at the commercial slaughterhouse down to $2 per pound.
“Republic Food Enterprise Center’s top of the line unit and excellent service paved the way to help achieve the goal of providing high quality food to the people in our community who arguably need it most,” Matt Pounds said.
Our team at Republic Food Enterprise was pleased to help Matt have an impact on his community and be able to provide high quality food for an affordable price. While we were happy to help assist Matt in his production, Republic Food Enterprise was able to help other farmers in his local community as well, helping bring down these costs in the local food economy. Aside from just being able to provide a business piece in our mobile slaughter unit, we are working with Matt to lead an educational program in his community. This program revolves around human meat production, specifically animal slaughter. Matt plans to teach his community, specifically the children who are interested in poultry production, about the process from start to finish. Our unit will be there to provide the community with an interactive workshop.
We are thrilled to see so much interest in Matt’s community about this because farming is such an important part of our daily lives and not only do we want to provide those around us with good food, but also educate them on the hard work that goes into what is on our tables. While our organization does work to support our farmers in any way we can, we want to be sure that our communities have access to fresh locally sourced food. It is an even bigger accomplishment for us to be able to help provide education along the way. Republic Food Enterprise Center is proud to work with some amazing people like Matt Pounds and provide our services to benefit his business and the community.
Our team at Republic Food Enterprise Center is happy to help any farmer in our community in any way we can. We are also happy to help those who may not be in the farming community, but have a dream of selling their perfect recipe with our full commercial kitchen and packaging resources.