In 2008, to address the need for humane and high quality slaughterhouses in the Hudson Valley and the Northeast, Glynwood formed a Regional Slaughterhouse Task Force.

During the course of this work, Glynwood spoke to farmers, butchers, chefs, writers, and other experts who illustrated the acute need for local, humane, and high-quality slaughter facilities. This video documents some of those conversations.

The Need for Local Meat Processing

The post-World War II rise of industrial-scale livestock farming west of the Mississippi River resulted in substantially diminished meat production in the Northeast and led to the closing of meat-processing facilities needed by farmers to process their animals for market. The consequence of this trend has been a drastic reduction of the region’s farm economy, along with significant loss of farmland and open space.

The Situation in Our Region

• Rapidly growing demand in the Hudson Valley and the Northeast for locally grown, humanely processed, pasture-fed beef, goat and lamb.
• Acute shortage of USDA slaughter facilities, which inhibits farmers from meeting the demand for locally grown meat, which in turn reduces the productivity of their farms and diminishes the economic viability of farming in the region.
• High cost of building and obtaining regulatory approval for new stationary slaughterhouses: even a small facility costs approximately $2-3 million to build.
• Community opposition to permanently sited slaughterhouses.
• Lack of training and educational opportunities to support the expansion of high quality livestock production; absence of skilled workers for the meat processing industry; and inadequate consumer understanding of pastured meats.

The Glynwood Solution

Under Glynwood’s leadership, the Regional Slaughterhouse Task Force worked to conceive and design a model slaughter facility that would overcome the obstacles to traditional facilities. Glynwood’s revolutionary mobile Modular Harvest System™ (“MHS”) will model the solution to the shortage of humane and high quality meat processing facilities in the Hudson Valley and the Northeast – a solution that will benefit farmers, consumers, communities, and the environment.

A truly pioneering venture, Glynwood’s MHS is:

• The first and only modular mobile slaughterhouse in the U.S.
• The first and only mobile facility in the U.S. with capacity for in-unit slaughter of large animals, enabling the entire process to be conducted indoors, which allows for safer, more sanitary processing.
• The first and only mobile unit licensed by the USDA east of New Mexico.

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