Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program

USDA is making grant funding available to meat and poultry processors for start-up and expansion. The objective is to provide more and better processing options to producers as soon as possible.

Eligible applicants, which include an individual sole proprietor business and other business entities, must engage or propose to engage in meat and poultry processing which will expand capacity in the sector. Entities are eligible regardless of legal structure and may include, but are not limited to, federally recognized tribes, tribal entities, for-profit entities, corporations, non-profit entities, producer-owned cooperatives and corporations, certified benefit corporations, and State or local government entities.
Private entities must be independently owned and operated. All entities must be domestically owned, and their meat and poultry processing facilities (existing or planned) must be physically located and operated within the U.S. or its territories.
Eligible applicants must process or plan to process one or more species subject to the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA) or the Poultry Product Inspection Act (PPIA) and possess or plan to obtain a Federal Grant of Inspection, a grant of inspection under a Cooperative Interstate Shipment Program, or a tribal or state meat and poultry inspection program with standards at least equal to Federal inspection at the time of application. Plants processing non-amenable species under voluntary Food Safety and Inspection Service inspection are also eligible to apply for funding.
Eligible applicants, including affiliates of the eligible applicant, must not hold a market share greater than or equal to the entity that holds the fourth largest share of that market for any of the following species: beef, pork, chicken, or turkey processing. All applicants must list and certify their market share for beef, pork, chicken, and turkey processing at the time of the application and indicate whether or not they are in the top four processors in those species.
Applicants that engage or propose to engage in further processing may be eligible provided that the project increases demand for animals; increases opportunities for producers to access value-added markets; or improves the viability of an existing processing operation. Additionally, for applicants that engage or plan to engage in further processing, inputs must be the products of primary processing.
A resolution of support is required for projects on tribal lands, from the governing body of the Tribe with jurisdiction over that land, if the applicant is not the Tribe nor an entity owned or operated by that Tribe.
Eligible applicants must be registered in the System for Award Management (SAM) at time of application and must maintain annual SAM registration while an application is active and through the term of an award. Please refer to Section 3.7.1 for instructions on how to register your entity in the SAM.
Multiple applications from separate applicant entities with identical or greater than 75 percent common ownership, or from a parent, subsidiary or affiliated organization (with ‘‘affiliation’’ defined by Small Business Administration regulation 13 CFR 121.103, or successor regulation) are not permitted.

The Agency will perform an Initial Qualification Screening. Applications that pass the Initial Qualification Screening will be considered by a Review Panel. Applications that pass the Review Panel will then undergo an Agency administrative evaluation where they will be ranked. The ranked applications will be awarded based on the funds available.