Siverlings decide on-farm plant makes sense

By Martha Hoffman Kerestes

Bloomer, Wisconsin — When the butcher shop that had been processing all of their pastured beef closed, Jared Siverling and his wife, Vanessa Klemish, had two options. One was trying to squeeze the 30 steers they annually finish into slots at the remaining two small facilities in the area.

The other was to start doing their own processing.

Jared and Vanessa chose the latter, in part because they wanted more control over the quality of the processing and packaging they feel is an important part of delivering the best meats to their customers.

“One of the biggest frustrations is to take a beautiful animal raised with a lot of love and care and some really good, high-quality feed, and then not control the vital processing step,” Jared explains. “Every farmer is fighting for processing slots, and opening a processing plant is a way to grow an additional revenue stream while adding value to the community.”

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To see this article in full, order the specific back issue you are interested in. This article appeared in the March 2024 issue of Graze.