MEAT+POULTRY - November 2024 - 8

COMMENTARY
Granting opportunities
While pouring over graphs, charts and
data points, it's easy to get sucked
into any number of rabbit holes.
When summarizing the findings of
MEAT+POULTRY's 2024-2025 Industry
Outlook and Business Health Survey
for this month's issue (see " Industry
watch, " page 14), I felt like Alice in
Wonderland over and over again.
With a sample size of 209 respondents
representing a wide swath of the
processing industry it is difficult
to make hard-and-fast correlations
when comparing the responses to one
question to the responses of others.
Nevertheless, I found it challenging to
not make some pretty valid " if-then "
contrasts of the findings.
While the survey results deliver
plenty of food for thought with regard
to the broad perspectives of today's
processors they also summarize
the industry outlook and business
health from the point of view of
industry professionals.
Excluded from the published
survey summary, were findings
under the heading of " Company and
Facility Expansion Activity " and how,
or if, companies represented by the
respondents had benefitted from
state and federal grant programs
intended to spur business growth
and provide financial resources to
expand current facilities or build new
ones. In our twice-daily web news
reporting, a headline that has become
increasingly frequent focuses on
either recently awarded grant funds
and the projects they helped pay for,
or the announcement of a new round
of grants designed specifically for
processors. These grant programs
represent millions of dollars available
to processors each year in an effort
to stimulate growth in the meat and
poultry processing industry. The
survey specifically asked respondents
if they had applied for federal grants,
such as the Local Meat Capacity
Grant (Local MCap), USDA Meat
and Poultry Processing Expansion
Program (MPPEP Phase 1 or 2) and
the Indigenous Animals Harvesting
and Meat Processing Grant Program
(IAG). Given the financial challenges
facing processors that were identified
in the outlook and business health
portion of the survey, the fact that only
about 15% of respondents said they had
applied for Local MCap or either phase
of MPPEP grants was cause for me to
look closer. Among those respondents,
in each of the programs more than
one in four (26%) said they " Don't
know " if their company applied for
the grants and about 60% reported not
applying for them. Among those who
reported that they had applied for the
grants, 20% of them said they had been
awarded funds, while 38% said their
applications were pending; 27% said
they had not been awarded funding and
15% didn't know what their status was.
In the survey category of capital
investments, just 35% of processor
respondents projected increased
spending in 2025 compared to 47%
that reported increased 2024 capital
spending over 2023 levels. It begs the
question, especially among the small
and medium-size companies, of how
could the possible influx of grantsourced
funding targeted at adding
space, updating facilities and possibly
adding jobs not be a top priority.
Anecdotally, in conversations with
suppliers of equipment and services
to processors, there is a common
refrain among many of them reminding
their customers that there are grants
available throughout each year
that would enable them to increase
spending and upgrade their facilities.
When asked what areas of their
businesses are targets for capital
investments, improving equipment
systems was a goal among 52% of
respondents followed by upgrading
existing facilities (38%) as well as
facility expansion (22%). I may be
accused of being mad as a hatter, but
it seems there are some untapped
resources to help processors work
toward achieving some elusive goals in
the year to come.
JOEL CREWS, EDITOR | jc rews@sos land.com
The fact that only about 15% of respondents
said they had applied for Local MCap or
either phase of MPPEP grants was cause
for me to look closer.
8 MEAT+POULTRY | 11.24 | www.meatpoultry.com
http://www.meatpoultry.com
MEAT+POULTRY - November 2024

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