TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. celebrated the opening of the 1839 Cherokee Meat Company in Tahlequah on Tuesday.
The name of the business, is a nod to the year 1839, when a constitution united the Cherokee Nation.
The facility cost $8.3 million. The majority of the funding for the new plant comes from CARES Act and American Rescue Plan Act, according to Brandon Scott, Director of Communications at Cherokee Nation Businesses.
The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) provides relief funds to state, local, and tribal governments that have been negatively impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
The ribbon cutting was held outside the new 12-thousand square foot processing plant located off Highway 51 on repurposed tribal property.
The 1839 Cherokee Meat Company was created after Hoskin, Deputy Chief Bryan Warner and the Council of the Cherokee Nation called for its construction to address food security and food sovereignty, and as a way to support local agriculture.
“What COVID revealed was that we lacked capacity in this country for meat processing,” Hoskin said. “There are gaps and we need to fill those gaps, and I think we owe it to the Cherokee people to be leaders on this.”
The new USDA inspected plant will also provide local ranchers, like Cherokee Nation citizen Craig Loftin, with a chance to retail his own beef, a boost he could use after having to sell off over 50 percent of his herd due to drought.
“You take a steer that you might sell at the sale barn for a thousand dollars,” he explained. “You can run him through the processing plant, sell it out in packages at home and gain around $3,000 out of that same steer.”
The USDA says it’s supportive of meat processing plants like the one in Tahlequah that help to strengthen the food supply chain by getting more processors in the country.
“As COVID broke out, we didn’t have enough meat processors in the U.S. and so stores would run of meat and people didn’t have access to it,” said Ken Corn, the State Director of the Oklahoma State Office of the USDA.
“It’s a re-investment in our communities. It is to secure our country’s food supply, and the Cherokee Nation’s leading the way in Oklahoma in doing this,” said Corn.
The 1839 Cherokee Meat Company currently employs seven full-time workers, but that number is expected to grow.
“Given the capacity issues that the region has that this is going to be a plant that works at full tilt, will be able to raise employment, and I think this is just the beginning,” said Hoskin.
They are processing pork and beef right now, and plan to add deer and elk next year, and eventually bison.
You can learn more about the facility at its website.
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