Livestock facility to handle beef, swine, goats, sheep

Odessa’s newest business will soon break ground at the Industrial Park on the south hill along Highway 21.

The meat-processing plant will provide local livestock ranchers with a nearby option for getting their product to market. Popular sentiment has people wanting to know where their food comes from, and they want to buy local whenever possible.

So this trend is reversing the long-tried idea that “bigger is better,” that large-scale operations save money for the consumer by consolidating every aspect of meat production in the hands of a few conglomerates. Recent problems with E-coli and salmonella bacteria in some of those huge operations have made for second thoughts by some consumers. Somehow those huge operations don’t seem so good at providing a safe, clean food supply. Maybe sometimes smaller is better.