DECATUR, Ill. — “Selling meat in Illinois, information for livestock producers” is the title of a handy factsheet from the University of Illinois Extension, Local Food Systems & Small Farms team. The emphasis of this publication is to help livestock producers navigate the rules and regulations of selling their meat products directly to consumers.
To sell meats and meat products in the state of Illinois, you need to be a licensed Meat and/or Poultry Broker. This requires filling out an application, which is available on-line and submitting it completed with the $50 fee.
All meats and meat products sold to consumers in Illinois must be inspect and marked by personnel from either the Illinois Dept. of Agriculture or the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture. In addition to being inspected, it must be properly labelled. For meats and their products to be sold interstate, they must be USDA inspected and marked. These types of inspections are only done in licensed Type 1 Processor facilities.
If a livestock producer uses a licensed Type 2 Processor facility, the meat is marked “Not for Resale” and is not inspected. To keep from being in violation of the law, a producer can sell the animal to the consumer and deliver it to a Type 2 Processor, where the consumer pays the Type 2 facility for the meat processing and picks up the finished processed product.
This factsheet is available at the U of I Extension, Local Food Systems & Small Farms website (go.illinois.edu/smallfarms) under the General heading on the Livestock page, or to download directly, go to: http://bit.ly/2UoX0BF.
— University of Illinois Extension, Macon County
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