ESCANABA, Mich. (WZMQ) – A Delta County business has received a $100,000 grant from the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (MDARD).
MDARD awarded $3.8 million dollars in Underserved, Value-Added, and Regional Food System grants to producers, processors, and community development organizations throughout the state. A total of 51 recipients received funding, including Rainbow Packing in Escanaba.
Rainbow Packing is the only USDA slaughter facility in the Upper Peninsula, according to owner Sue Sicotte. The grant money will allow the business to update its smoker, improve its production and cooling process, and create two full-time jobs and one part-time job.
“For smoking, you have to monitor time, temperature, humidity, cooling,” said Sicotte. “Our smoker right now is old. It was there when we bought the business 26 years ago. In order to keep up with all of the federal regulations and standards, we need to upgrade some of our equipment.”
Sicotte says farmers across the U.P. depend on Rainbow Packing to legally process and sell their meat products.
“If they want to sell to a grocery store, to a restaurant, or through a farmer’s market, all of that meat has to go through USDA inspection,” she said. “That allows them to go basically from farm to table. Without us, it would be very hard for them. They’d have to go quite a ways to even be able to distribute.”
In addition to providing meat processing services to customers, Rainbow Packing works with organizations like UPCAP and the Food As Medicine Program to combat food insecurity. Last year, Rainbow Packing provided more than 30,000 pounds of ground beef to Feeding America West Michigan.
