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ST. HENRY - Cooper Farms, a family-owned farm and food company with a strong presence in Mercer County, intends to purchase a new $700,000-plus turkey meat forming machine with help from a nearly $500,000 state grant.
The machine will allow the producer and packager of meats and eggs for private label and food service to more efficiently make an array of dark turkey meat products, including a new turkey meatloaf, at its St. Henry harvest plant.
An aerial view of the Cooper Farms facility.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine this week announced a state investment of $14 million to improve and expand meat harvest and processing facilities across Ohio.
Cooper Hatchery Inc., St. Henry, was awarded $490,321, and Barman Meats LLC, which does business as Green's Quality Meats in Celina, $102,631.
Other grant recipients in the area were The Butcher Block & Smokehouse LLC, $200,190; Ketring Meats LLC, $105,701; King & Sons Poultry Services Inc., $322,208; Robert Winner Sons Inc. (Winner Corporation, Greenville), $88,306; and Robert Winner Sons Inc. (Yorkshire), $200,596, all in Darke County.
The 51 companies involved in the meat harvest and processing industry across 33 counties in Ohio can use the funds awarded through the fourth round of the Ohio Meat Processing Grant Program to construct new facilities or make upgrades to existing facilities, including machinery and other equipment, according to a news release from DeWine's office.
"Meat harvesters and processors help keep our supply chain strong and our grocery stores and restaurants stocked," DeWine said in a statement. "These grants will enable them to build better facilities and stay up-to-date with the latest industry trends."
Cooper Farms Co-owner and Chief Operating Officer Gary Cooper told the newspaper that the nearly $500,000 state grant will go toward the purchase of a new Formax forming machine.
"It's actually for a really nice piece of new, modern technology equipment made in the USA. It's a Formax machine," he said. "It makes all kinds of dark meat products … so dark turkey meats like using thigh meat, drum meat, so on and so forth."
It will replace one of two aging units inside the company's St. Henry harvest plant where turkey burgers are made, packaged and shipped out, Cooper said.
The oldest unit will either be sold or used for parts.
"This is more versatile. It can make different types of products," he said. "We're really excited about getting it."
On an annual basis, Cooper Farms produces about 350 million live pounds of turkey at the St. Henry harvest plant, according to Cooper.
Cooper Farms is one of the nation's largest producers of turkey meats.
Every tom turkey processed by Cooper Farms results in 60% white meat and 40% dark meat, Cooper said. The raw white meat - e.g. turkey breast, turkey tenders - is shipped to the company's cooked meats plant in Van Wert, where it is made into deli meats that are then distributed to and sold at big box stores across the country, Cooper said.
"That plant up there produces about 100 million pounds of cooked product, and a high proportion of that is turkey, but we also do chicken deli meat and we do ham deli meat," he said.
The dark turkey meat stays in St. Henry where it is made into turkey burgers and other products or packaged in different ways and sold as a commodity to other end users to make their own dark meat products, Cooper explained. The new state-of-the-art Formax machine should enable the company to keep more of the dark turkey meat for its own products.
"We're just trying to use as much of our dark meat ourselves, and by getting this machine in it gives us more capacity to produce more in a better way and also different dark meat turkey products," Cooper said. "We can make turkey burgers. We can make turkey sausage patties. We have a new turkey meatloaf that we're creating right now that a couple of our current customers are interested in putting on the shelves for us."
Turkey meatloaf is considered a lean, nutrient-rich source of high protein that can be incorporated into healthy lifestyles. It's not on many consumers' radar, but Cooper is looking to change that in a big way.
"There's been a little bit of turkey meatloaf made but not much and it's very hard to find, so we're just thinking that if we can make the right product and get it into the right big box stores with the right packaging and at the right size, that maybe we could start a trend ourselves," he said.
Cooper Farms counts among it customers Walmart, Sam's Club, Costco, Kroger and Food Lion.
Cooper expects for the new machine to be delivered, installed and operational around Christmastime.
"This is the time of the year where we're making turkey burgers," he said. "The turkey burgers tend to be seasonal so we make them all winter and then they put them on the shelves for the spring and summer growing seasons."
Of the company's three core protein products, turkey is king, representing about 60% of its total businesses.
"That puts us about seventh in the nation on turkey, and turkey's been very popular for many years," Cooper said. "Our focus is just strictly on deli products and other value-aded products like that."
The company over the last three years built 40 new turkey barns through its contract grower system, Cooper said. It has about 425 total contract growers scattered all around western Ohio and Eastern Indians who raise animals that account for its three core protein products.
"That allowed us to produce about 2,500 more tom turkeys going into our harvest plant per day," he said about the new barns. "Currently now we're running right around 27,000 tom turkeys that go through our harvest plant and each one of them weigh approximately 45 pounds."
Cooper Farms also produces roughly 160 million dozen chicken eggs a year.
"We have about seven million layers (chickens), and we also have a liquid egg plant where we break eggs and we split them into the white and the yoke," Cooper said. "We do about 35 million pounds of liquid egg in that plant … in Fort Recovery."
The third protein Cooper Farms specializes in is pork.
"On the hog side, we start with the baby pigs and they go through our growing facilities and then we sell them to a partner that has a packing plant up in Coldwater, Michigan," he said. "We produce about 250 million live pounds of hogs every year."
Barman Meats LLC, which does business as Green's Quality Meats in Celina, received $102,631 through the Meat Processing Grant Program, according to the release.
Green's Quality Meats sells retail items such as sausage, marinated pork chops and tenderloins and other beef, pork and smokehouse items. At the same time, Green's is known for its butchering and processing services.
The newspaper was unable to get a comment from the business about what it plans to do with the grant dollars.
Eligible uses of the grant include new and upgraded machinery, other equipment and technology products and plant construction or expansion for confinement, processing and refrigeration.
The Ohio Department of Development administers the program in collaboration with the Ohio Department of Agriculture, according to the release.
"Ohio's meat processing sector is critical to strengthening our number one industry -- food and agriculture," said ODA Director Brian Baldridge in a statement. "Not only do they provide the highest quality choices for your family, but they also ensure the products are safe and healthy for you to eat. Another round of funding will provide support to Ohio's hardworking meat processors."
