6/4/2012

Small-Scale Slaughterhouses Aim To Put The 'Local' Back In Local Meat

It's hard to go a day without hearing people brag about how they eat local. In-the-know consumers wax poetic about their local farmers' markets, and some even make pilgrimages to meet their rancher, visit cows grazing and see pigs playing happily in the mud.

But the dirty little secret is, while that steak those "locavores" just bought at the farmers' market may have come from a cow that grazed in nearby pastures, it probably wasn't processed anywhere nearby. In fact, many local meat products are sent to slaughterhouses hundreds of miles away, across state lines.