“It’s undeniable that the pandemic had a huge positive effect on our business,” said co-owner Kira Jarosz. “We’re out of chicken every week.”

Over the last three years, Jarosz and her husband Tim Anthony have seen a massive uptick in demand for their locally raised chicken and pork. Last year, they ran out of retail chicken by December and had a gap of six months before their first slaughter date in June.

Despite the state’s $4 billion-plus agricultural economy, only 3 percent of the food Montanans eat is produced there, down from 70 percent in the 1950s, according to a 2022 report from Highland Economics. Operating within an increasingly consolidated and globalized market, most of Montana’s commodity crops—beef, wheat, barley, safflower, lentils, and chickpeas—get exported out of state.

Producers like Jarosz are working hard to change this figure by raising, slaughtering, and marketing their own meat. At the same time, they are bringing transparency to how meat is raised and brought to dinner tables throughout Montana.

“There are not many people, particularly around here, that are raising thousands of chickens,” Jarosz said. “There aren’t replicable systems for doing this.”

Instead of selling to a big meat packer or corporate distributor, Black Dog Farm sells directly to consumers at farmers’ markets and several retailers, wholesale to restaurants, and through a community-supported agriculture (CSA) subscription program.

To meet the demand for local chicken, Black Dog Farm owners Kira Jarosz and Tim Anthony built their own processing facility that allows them to butcher up to 20,000 of their own birds a year.

With funding from the CARES Act administered through the Montana Department of Agriculture’s Montana Meat Processing Infrastructure grant, they are now able to process all their birds on site for local sale.

Lack of market competition in the meatpacking industry has driven the percentage that ranchers receive for every consumer dollar spent on beef in the grocery store down to 40.5 cents, according to federal data.

Four conglomerates control nearly all of the market for meat products across the United States: Cargill, Tyson Foods, JBS, and National Beef Packing. The meat processing industry has experienced significant consolidation over the last 50 years as these large conglomerates absorbed more and more small processors. In 1977, the largest four beef packing firms controlled approximately 25 percent of the market. Today, it’s around 82 percent.

While Montanans have enjoyed relatively low food prices, the consolidation of production has led to less food processing capacity in Montana; more reliance on processing outside of the state and distribution infrastructure; and a smaller portion of retail spending on food going back to the farmer or rancher.

In response, a growing number of producers in Montana are distributing their own meat. “We’ve got more local or regional processing happening so that it’s easier to get the meat into people’s hands nearby,” said Robin Kelson, the executive director of Alternative Energy Resource Organization, a nonprofit that works on sustainability and strengthening food systems in Montana. “It keeps money local, and it keeps jobs local.”

However, even with more local processing options, most of the meat Montanans consume is imported to the state after being processed elsewhere, according to Highland Economics.

Montana is known for ranching. There are 2.5 million head of cattle in the state and just over 1 million people, or roughly 2.5 cattle for every person.

Jaimie Stolzfus and her husband Austin manage the P Bar Ranch in McLeod, beneath the towering Absaroka Range, a subrange of the Rocky Mountains. Instead of selling their beef through the conventional market, they started Cowgirl Meat Co. to sell directly to consumers, retailers, and restaurants to capture more of each retail dollar.

“When the pandemic hit, we had the animals outside our door [ready to slaughter], but it’s not easy calling up the processor to get some meat harvested this week or next week,” Stolzfus said. “I wasn’t the only one trying to get meat processed.”

The rancher takes her animals a short 25 miles to Pioneer Meats in Big Timber, where her beef is slaughtered and packaged under her own label. While she appreciates having this local option, the processor is running at nearly full capacity and squeezing in an extra animal when sales are good isn’t a guaranteed option. “We have to plan a year out,” she said.

Stolzfus said there aren’t enough processing facilities in Montana for the current demand from producers.

Not all ranchers in the state can process their meat nearby. During the early days of the pandemic, many were plagued with long wait times for processing, closed processors, and long drives to open facilities.

As a way to confront this challenge, Warrior Meat Company on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation bought a mobile meat processing trailer that can be towed from ranch to ranch on the reservation.

As part of the nonprofit Peoples Partners for Community Development (PPCD), Warrior Meat Company is providing processing to build food security for tribal members and the broader community. Associated with the recently opened Warrior Grocery in Ashland, the butchers from Warrior Meat Company process four to five animals a month for local ranchers and cut nonlocal beef for their fresh case at the grocery store.

“Ultimately, our goal is to build a whole facility that isn’t part of the grocery store and become USDA-certified,” said Adam Zimmer, PPCD’s business development specialist. “We want to provide more jobs and handle more animals.”

USDA inspection would allow Warrior Meat Company to sell local beef in the retail case at the grocery store, guarantee an outlet for local ranchers, and keep more retail dollars circulating on the reservation.

At the base of the Bridger Mountains, north of Bozeman, in a wide expanse of grass and sagebrush, Matt Skoglund and his family raise a herd of bison for their meat business North Bridger Bison. Wanting to provide the lowest stress option to his animals, he has chosen to field-harvest his bison with a rifle out in the pasture. This way, his animals spend their entire lives on pasture and surrounded by the herd.

“I experience a range of emotions leading up to the shot,” Skoglund said. “I have a lot of adrenaline and nervous energy, which I consider a good thing.”

“Every day I’m just so grateful for the people that show up at the markets or place online orders,” said Kira Jarosz. “We feel so supported.” Jarosz looks forward to continuing to grow her business and provide more meat to her community.

Out in the field, he kills, cleans, documents with photos, and loads each bison onto his flatbed truck so that he can deliver the animal for further processing at a licensed facility. Last year, he averaged a harvest of nearly one bison per week.

Around 60 percent of the meat Skoglund has processed stays in his community and he’s proud to deliver orders directly to his customers. He says this process builds long-term relationships with his customers that keep his business thriving, and it allows people to ask him questions about his methods, the meat industry, and how to prepare bison.

“Ultimately, it just feels wonderful to meet in person and deliver the meat,” he said. “I always drive away feeling really, really good.”