Spencer’s First Meat Processing Plant Opening June 14

The A&H Custom Meat and Processing plant will open on June 14 in Spencer becoming the first facility in the county.

President Barry Austin said the plant will start with seven full-time employees and provide job opportunities to Van Buren County High School students interested in working this summer. Austin said they have received over 500 calls from Upper Cumberland cattle producers.

“It will definitely benefit the Upper Cumberland here, we can tell already,” Austin said. “We’ve already had a big movement of people calling us and some farmers are reserving 10 slots per month to sell processed beef out of our facility.”

Austin said the industry in Middle Tennessee is so backlogged that producers make appointments for slaughter before cattle are even born. He said USDA beef will be available for sale at the facility located at 211 Industrial Parkway in Spencer.

“We’re possibly thinking of going full USDA slaughter facility within the next year,” Austin said. “But we want to get our feet wet a little bit and see how it goes before we go full blown USDA.”

Austin said this would allow a processed animal to be sold piece by piece. Austin said the phone system is not set up but the number to contact is 931-946-MEAT.