This is a great model, and should be replicated widely.  In fact I think the USDA should finance the production of a fleet of mobile slaughter units for areas that fall under their Rural Development guidelines.  These units, in addition to the obvious farmer benefits, reduce the stress on animals before slaughter as they are not made to travel long distances beforehand.  I say this as someone whose family raised cows, pigs & chickens for meat.

If you want to hear more on the difficulties of small-scale slaughterhouses, check out the archived podcasts of "Deconstructing Dinner" in Nelson BC.  They covered the attempt of some small farmers to build an "abattoir" and ran into trouble with local environmentalists who lumped them in with the big-guys as a threat to clean water.  Shows how hard it is for the small operators to bring about change.

Mobile slaughter trailers  began in Texas as a way to slaughter buffalo raised on range. If you have ever tried to corral and chute a buffalo you can understand why standing a few hundred yards away with a rifle equipped with a laser sight makes alot of sense.  Texas still permits state inspected slaughter facilities.

The 1st USDA FSIS approved red meat trailer was as stated started on Lopex Island in  San Juan County, Washinngton State. It is USDA Organic Certified.

In 1996, a group of livestock farmers in San Juan County, Washington state, started talking with each other and the county extension service about how to make local meat production possible. The farmers lacked access to USDA slaughter and processing – they couldn’t transport their animals to facilities on the mainland. When the idea of a mobile slaughter unit came up, the farmers and the county extension agent approached the Lopez Community Land Trust, a community land trust focused on affordable housing and sustainable rural development, to be the host organization for the project. LCLT hired Bruce Dunlop to design and build the MPU.

The total cost for the project was $150,000 in 2000. A new trailer in 2008 with the same capacity costs $170,000.

Trailer $60,000
Equipment & Installation $27,000
Truck $18,000
Design/ Project Mgmt. $25,000
Testing $15,000
Outreach $ 5,000

It is operated by producers as a co-op is profitable and exceeds income expectations. Last year the producers consider getting a bank loan to expand but after looking at all the red tape involved dipped into their own pockets to make the loan.

There are now several of these in operation around the country and also a bunch Chicken slaughter mobile units such as in Vermont and Kentucky.

Since they are mobile and approved by the USDA,  no zoning requirements need to be met. Most urban areas where these would work would never permit a fixed slaughterhouse. The vegan and Peta folks use any such public hearings as PR field day.

The next phase in the renewal of an alternative food chain is to build New Zealand style processing plants. These are basically small scale butchering operations that most people familiar with this part of the food chain  considered to be the safest plants in the world. World wide research by Booze-Allan labeled these as the safest and most hygienic facilities in the world. McDonald's buys about 20% of it burger meat for the US from these plants due to safety factors, although their PR statements on this are more to apllease the cattleman's beef lobby. The reality is McDonald's does not  want to have to change their sign from Billions and Billions served to Billions and billions shelled out for a bad hamburger. The coffee case taught them a lesson. 

These New Zealand style processing plants allow  the Mobile unit to drive  up and  transferred a cleaned hanging carcass into a dry storage area. Most meat today is wet hung rather than dry hung.

One big advantage of such a system is minimizing contamination and better tasting, think quality meat. In the typical slaughter facility the live animals mill around waiting to go to the chute. In big feedlots, CAFO's you got very large populations. There feces and urine cover everything including the animals and the human handlers. It is impossible to have a system under such conditions where the carcass is not subject to some form of contamination. That why anyonme familiar with the current USDA FSIS inspection system  HACCAP - will tell you the acronym stands for Have Another Cup of Coffee and Pray.

You will be happy to know that your government has done everything possible to prevent a New Zealand style processor from being built in the USA. Praying is a lot cheaper for the Cargill's and Tysons of the world.

She couldn't find ANY sustainable slaughterhouses??  She should have checked out Eco-Friendly Foods in Moneta, VA.  Bev Eggleston has been humanely slaughtering pasture raised animals for more than a decade. He sells to high end restaurants and at farmer's markets up and down the East Coast, mostly in the DC and NYC areas. Yes, comparitively his operation is small, but it's having a huge impact on the sustainable food movement in this part of the country. He is so well known, that it's rather frequent that you'll see "Bev's Pork Ribs" or "Bev's Grass-Kickin Chicken" on a menu at a restaurant.  What other slaughterhouse owner do you know that customers recognize by first name alone?

If Bev sells EcoFriendly Foods in your area, do the movement, the animals, and you palate a favor and buy it.  In my opinion there is simply no higher quality or more sustainable meat out there than his.

Hopefully mobile slaughterhouses will open the door for more small farmers and ranchers to make a living wage from their product.

I was talking to the owner of J&J Grassfed beef today as he delivered the shares for the CSA I coordinate in San Diego, and he said that slaughtering was the real bottleneck in the market for rotationally grazed, holistically managed grassfed beef.

He said he'd be happy to help many other interested ranchers in the area transition to this style of management and sales, but there are only so many cattle his small, humane slaughterhouse can handle. Mobile slaughterhouses could make a big difference!