|
By Gary Gunderson
He's a pork producer from Okabena, Minn., and president of the Minnesota
Pork Producers Association.
Last month, Liepold and four other farm families had a deeply personal
interest in seeing how pork was selling at Kowalski's Market in Woodbury,
Minn. The farmers ventured to the store to introduce Minnesota Certified
Pork, a cooperative they formed to market pork that's certified to meet
high production and quality standards.
The pork is the first product that has gone through Minnesota Certified, a
third-party certification program run by the University of Minnesota and
Minnesota Department of Agriculture. The program is known as
MinnCERT for short.
Began two years ago, the voluntary program allows farmers to develop production standards that
appeal to consumer demands for product quality and animal care, says Dave
Starner, a Hoffman, Minn., hog producer who is a former MPPA president. The
university and MDA make sure standards are met.
Starner started the project more than two years ago when pork prices
dropped to $8 per hundredweight, he says. He helped develop the program's
model with Thomas Blaha, professor of veterinary medicine at the
university, and Jerry Shurston, professor of animal science.
The pork is sold in Kowalski's Minnesota stores in Woodbury, White Bear
Lake, Inver Grove Heights and St. Paul. It also will be distributed through
SuperValu to two yet-to-be-determined grocery chains, Starner says.
Boyd Oase, meat manager for Kowalski's, says there seems to be good
consumer response to Minnesota Certified Pork, but it's too early for sales
figures. The market started selling the pork about one week before the
official May 23 kickoff.
The idea behind selling pork that's seen as higher quality than commodity
cuts appeals to Kowalski's because the market serves a clientele that
doesn't mind paying more for food if it's seen as a good value, Oase says.
Kowalski's also wanted to shore up sales of pork, which recently have
slipped in competition with beef and poultry.
"My expectations is it will improve our sales for pork," Oase says. "Any
area where we can get better shelf movement is good for us."
Hogs are processed at Swift and Co.'s plant in Worthington, Minn., to make it easier for consumers and others to trace the
meat's origins and to maintain high processing standards, Starner says. The
five farmers will supply 1,100 hogs a week to the cooperative.
Meeting consumer demands
If the concept is successful, other farmers will be invited to join the
cooperative and buy stock, he says. The hope is there will be so much
demand for certified pork that more processors and grocery chains will come
on line.
In addition to Liepold and Starner, other farmers in the cooperative
include Jim Quackenbush of Chokio, Minn., David and Karen Richter of
Montgomery, Minn., and John Vaubel of Mapleton, Minn. Their herd sizes vary
from 125 to 2,000 sows, Starner says.
The Richters and other cooperative members say they wanted to move away
from the uncertainties of the commodity pork market while meeting consumer
demands for quality and the ability to trace animals back to the farm.
"It seemed like a progressive move for our operation," Karen Richter says.
"The industry is changing, the average consumer is changing. They want to
know where their food is produced."
Richter says many people want to help family farmers, but don't know how.
The cooperative makes putting more money in farmers' pockets as easy as
going to the grocery store.
The Richters says the production guidelines already are being met by many
producers. The only difference is the university and MDA are checking.
After looking at pork in the meat case with the MinnCERT label, Liepold couldn't help but smile.
|
