Source:  NCDA&CS, 6/21/21


Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler recently recognized a team of employees that has had a huge impact on the state by helping to fix a food supply chokepoint. It’s a problem that became more obvious in the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic – the state’s meat processors couldn’t keep up with demand. When the pandemic disrupted national food distribution, many North Carolinian meat and seafood raisers or producers and their customers turned to smaller locally owned and operated meat and seafood processing facilities. However, many of those businesses couldn’t accommodate the surge in demand for the meat and seafood to be processed. Waitlists and order backlogs quickly grew to be a year long.

That prompted the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services to create the “Increasing Meat Production, Efficiency and Capacity” (IMPEC) grant program. It’s stated goal has been to support North Carolina’s animal agriculture industry “by increasing efficiency and capacity of local small-scale meat processing facilities that will benefit the livestock producers, processors and consumers to ensure an uninterrupted supply of wholesome North Carolina meat products.”

The following seven NCDA&CS employees have been the team running the grant program:
– Joe Hampton, Agricultural Programs Specialist
– Sam Brake, Agricultural Program Specialist
– Allison Medlin, Administrative Assistant II
– Kelly McIver, Marketing Specialist III
– Jack Nales, Marketing Specialist
– John Aydlett, Seafood Marketing Specialist
– Pete Anderson, Aquaculture Consultant

For more of this story, click here.