Envision Cold

What a USDA-inspected plant means for you.

This plant holds a federal grant of inspection from the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. An inspector is on site when it runs, and meat or poultry it handles can be sold to stores, restaurants and across state lines. Its grant covers processing, not slaughter: it takes carcasses or meat in, not live animals. A custom-exempt butcher is a different thing. It can cut and wrap an animal for the owner's own freezer, but that meat cannot be sold, and those shops are licensed by the state, so they are not in this list. Your state department of agriculture keeps that roster.

Worth asking before you go:

• Do you take animals from small farms, and how far out are you booking?
• Which species do you handle, and on which days?
• Can you cut to my sheet, vacuum pack, and label with my farm name?
• Do you offer inspected slaughter with custom processing, or only one of the two?