Two North Carolina seafood processors that have received grant money through a NCDA&CS grant program hosted a tour recently to show off their facilities. While the point of the tour wasn’t to highlight the improvements made with the grant money, those improvements couldn’t be ignored. They have become an important part of each business’s operations and plans for improvement.

The tour was part of the N.C. Tobacco Trust Fund Commission Agricultural Leadership Development Program. Participants were getting a firsthand look at some agriculture in eastern North Carolina, which brought them to Hyde County – specifically Mattamuskeet Seafood/Shell Point Shellfish in Swan Quarter and Engelhard Mattamuskeet Seafood/Diamond Shoal Shrimp Co. in Engelhard.

Program participants got a general overview of each facility’s operations, and that included some relatively new improvements paid for through the Increasing Meat Processing Efficiency and Capacity grant program. The IMPEC grant funding came from money earmarked for North Carolina in the federal “Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act” – commonly called the CARES Act. With approval from the N.C. General Assembly, Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler announced in September 2020 that NCDA&CS would create and administer the IMPEC grant program. Because of a shortage of meat on store shelves as the pandemic first surged, the goal was to help independent meat processors (including seafood processors) in the state make improvements and increase their output.

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