Coming Soon: Swift Run Station
Bringing Fresh Local Meat & Poultry to Washtenaw County
-
For Local Farmers
Swift Run Station will offer the critical infrastructure needed to bring their poultry and meat products to local markets: a local USDA-inspected slaughter and processing for poultry, and USDA-inspected processing for red meat. In addition, we will offer value-add options like grinding, smoking, and canning. We will also assist farmers in selling their products if they wish at our onsite market, or through wholesale distribution channels we develop.
-
For Local Eaters
Swift Run Station will offer a market selling fresh local meat and poultry products, along with other local products and basic grocery items. We will also have a cafe featuring meals prepared with these local products, and fostering a meeting place within our community.
-
For Businesses
Swift Run Station will offer to develop wholesale distribution channels to other businesses, for the meat and poultry products we produce. Reciprocally, our market hopes to sell food products produced by other local businesses.
Mighty Fine Poultry Processing
On Mondays, Mighty Fine Poultry Processing will process up to 800 birds per hour under USDA inspection. This process will begin with live birds delivered by local farmers, and end with poultry products chilling in the cooler, processing areas that are again clean and pristine, and waste products that are chilled in covered containers. This work to humanely slaughter and process birds grown by local farmers may be the most difficult and most important work we will do. To ensure this effort has our undivided attention, the rest of the facility will be closed on Mondays.
Retro Meats Company
Retro Meats Company will bring fresh local beef, pork, lamb, and goat to the community. Retro Meats will not engage in slaughter but instead will take our refrigerated truck on the road to area slaughterhouses, to bring back USDA-inspected carcasses to hang in the Retro Meats carcass cooler. During the week these carcasses will be further processed under USDA inspection, for eventual distribution to our onsite market and other businesses in the community through wholesale distribution channels.
Swift Run Market
Consumers will reap the benefits of bringing local meat processing into our community at Swift Run Market, where fresh local poultry, beef, pork, lamb and goat will be available 6 days a week. Combining meat manufacturing with meat marketing on this scale means we’ll be able to try some new things. For example, since we’ll be processing from multiple farms each week, we expect our poultry counter to reflect that diversity, with chickens from different farms and with different attributes and different price points to choose from, all on display. Similarly, in our cafe, we look forward to offering “flights” of chicken wings sourced from different farms. Just as different people like the flavor of different beers, it may be that different people like the flavor of different chickens. At Swift Run Market, we’ll offer easy ways for consumers to explore the range of poultry that farmers in the area are growing.