The Regional Economic Development Institute at Colorado State University published a report outlining the far-reaching economic implications of the Denver slaughterhouse ban that has already qualified for the November ballot.
If passed, it would shut down the Superior Farms lamb processing plant in the city. Closing the plant would mean the loss of 15 to 20 percent of the country’s lamb harvest capacity.
Superior Farms was founded in 1964 and is now the largest lamb processor in the United States. This 100-percent employee-owned facility with a workforce of 170-plus people is the only slaughter facility that operates within the city limits of Denver.
The report notes that shutting down this facility is likely to substantially impact the U.S. based lamb supply chain and would severely strain existing facilities, thus reducing the volume of Colorado lamb available for purchase in Colorado and the rest of the U.S. Additionally, lamb producers in the Mountain West region would have limited options for marketing harvest-ready lambs in an already over-burdened meat processing sector.
“The CSU study underscores how the Denver ballot measure ban is unfair, ineffective and simply the wrong approach. Eliminating a local food source not only eliminates over $800 million in economic activity, it also hurts the environment by forcing restaurants and grocery stores to import lamb products from overseas while unnecessarily driving up food costs for consumers,” said Colorado Wool Growers Association Executive Director Bonnie Brown.
“Banning a single Denver business won’t improve animal welfare in Colorado. But it will eliminate hundreds of jobs. This study shows that the ban not only eliminates 170 jobs at the employee-owned plant in Denver, but it also threatens thousands of other related jobs across the state,” said Zach Riley of the Colorado Livestock Association.
If the measure passes, Denver will be the first and only city in the country to ban meat processing. The measure could cost taxpayers $70 million or more to compensate Superior Farms for taking its property and forcing it to shut down.
A campaign has been launched to defeat the ballot measure. Click Here to learn more about Superior Farms’ Stop the Ban campaign.
Click Here for more information and to download the full report from CSU.
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CSU/American Sheep Industry Association
