Grant opportunity for meat processors, focused on beef
Meat supply chain disruptions during the COVID pandemic spurred investment by the federal government to diversify and strengthen the meat supply chain. Over the past four years, there have been several grant programs made available from USDA to support local and regional meat processors. The final grant opportunity from those funds is now accepting applications. The Notice of Funding Availability is found here: https://www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/business-programs/meat-and-poultry-processing-expansion-program-phase-4#to-apply
The Meat and Poultry Processor Expansion Program, Round 4, has a total of $60 million to support strengthening the beef processing supply chain. Half of the funding will target existing small and very small beef processors (those with fewer than 500 employees), and half will be reserved for what USDA has defined as mid-sized enterprises (500 or more employees but fewer than 3,000). In all cases, the business must already exist and have state or federal inspection in place for at least one year.
MPPEP IV has two categories:
1. Processing Expansion Projects can be supported with $50,000 to $2 million in grant funds. Recipients must contribute 50% of the project cost as a match to Federal funding.
2. Simplified Equipment-Only Projects can receive from $10,000 to $250,000, with recipients required to contribute 25% of the project cost as a match to Federal funding.
The proposal can be for use to expand and strengthen fresh and value-added processing for beef. Please note that to be eligible applicants must also conduct primary beef slaughter activities and have been operating for at least one year under an FSIS grant of inspection, a Cooperative Interstate Shipment Program, or state meat and poultry inspection.
As with all government programs, to submit a proposal your business must have a Unique Entity ID and a grants.gov account. If you are interested in applying for this grant, and do not have a unique ID, that needs to be your first task. To obtain a Unique Entity ID, go to https://sam.gov/entity-registration and to set up a grants.gov account go to https://www.grants.gov/
All applications must be submitted through the grants.gov portal by 11:59 p.m. EDT August 7th.
For assistance with any part of the grant development and submission process, please reach out to AMSA or any other member of the Meat and Poultry Technical Assistance Network. You can contact Rob Maddock directly at AMSA via email rmaddock@meatscience.org or find additional assistance at https://meatscience.org/publications-resources/usda-ams-mpptap or https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/grants/mppta
Rob Maddock, Ph.D., Scientific Communication Resource Officer
American Meat Science Association