Processing a legacy
McBride Angus Farm of Manchester is vertically integrated
Story by Ella Hasty, Photos by Page Haynes
A group of recently weaned registered Angus cattle graze in the fields at the McBride farm. The family owns about 600 cattle and rely on Co-op mineral year-round.
Processing a legacy
McBride Angus Farm of Manchester is vertically integrated
Story by Ella Hasty, Photos by Page Haynes
If you had told a teenaged Matthew McBride that he would someday be the owner of Tennessee’s largest privately-owned USDA-inspected slaughter plant, he probably wouldn’t have believed you.
“As a kid, the joke was that I would’ve been a veterinarian if I could have stomached the sight of blood,” says McBride, owner of McBride Meats Co. in South Pittsburg and a Coffee Farmers Cooperative customer.
McBride Meats Co. primarily processes beef, but they also handle sheep, goats, bison, and have even done elk. The plant is co-owned by two beef farmers, McBride and Chris Collins.
In 2017, McBride left the insurance world to become a full-time cattle farmer. In September 2019, the family brought their beef to the processor in South Pittsburg for the first time, and less than two years later, the family owned the plant.
“We brought our beef here from Manchester to be processed, and then the previous owner said that I should buy the place,” McBride explains. “It has completely changed the whole dynamic of our operation.”
McBride not only manages the processing plant, but he also oversees 600 head of cattle with his father, Mark McBride, at McBride Angus Farm in Manchester. It often takes “a lot of juggling” to keep both running efficiently.
McBride has a team of 17 employees who are essential in keeping the plant running. Amber Pleasant, the plant manager, can step in anywhere throughout the plant and lend a hand. Two employees work the front desk, six work the kill floor, and seven are on the butchering crew.
“We probably have 350 to 400 regular clients,” McBride says, adding that customers come from as far away as Birmingham, Eastern Georgia, West Tennessee, and Kentucky. “We average about 30 clients every month, and our plant slaughters some 50 animals a week.”
Taking a break in the hayfield, Mark McBride, left, joins two-year old William and Matthew McBride at their family farm in Manchester.
Many people make the trip for one specific reason: the plant slaughters everything under USDA inspection, unlike a lot of other facilities.
“They may be labeled as a USDA-inspected plant, but USDA inspectors are only there a day or two a week,” McBride clarifies.
Sydney Wills, the plant’s dedicated USDA inspector, has served in that role since 1997. She is paid by the government and is there five days a week to ensure that employees sanitize their knives, wash their aprons and hands, and keep the meat clean.
Amber Pleasant explains that basically everything at the plant is inspected — from the time the cattle are unloaded until the moment the meat leaves the property. Cattle must be properly handled in a humane way and every job must be performed in a precise manner.
“Every time we process an animal for ground beef, that is one animal in that package,” McBride says. “If you go to a grocery store and buy a pound of ground beef, there’s 30 to 40 animals in that one pound of ground beef. [The USDA inspection] allows the processing plant to trace the meat back to one specific animal.”
The McBrides sell their beef at the plant in South Pittsburg and at a freezer display on their farm in Manchester. The display is run by the elder McBride, Mark, and features Angus and Wagyu beef. They sell also products such as brisket bacon, angus beef sausage patties, and many cuts of meat.
“I don’t consider myself a meat processor, but a farmer who’s vertically integrated,” says McBride. “I have to come down here to keep an eye on the plant, but ultimately, we’re moving our product through here. We’re here to protect other farmers and we want them to know that they have a farmer at this desk.”
The McBrides have been longtime customers of the Co-op, and Mark was even a Co-op intern at Henry Farmers Co-op in Paris during his college years. They feed mineral to their cattle year-round, including Supreme Hi Mag (#638) and Supreme Cattle Mineral (#678), which helps the animals to be at a healthy and desired weight for finishing.
McBride and his wife, Amanda, have three children: Meredith, 11; Joanna, 5; and William, 2; all of whom are active on the farm. As McBride looks to the future, he wants to give his children an opportunity to carry on farming, despite the ever-growing development in Middle Tennessee.
As a family, the McBrides have a strong FFA legacy. Mark served as Tennessee FFA State President in 1980-1981; Matthew, as Tennessee FFA State President in 2006-2007; and his brother, Stephen, as Tennessee FFA State President in 2012-2013 and National FFA Southern Region Vice President in 2014-2015. McBride says he believes in the future of agriculture and wants to continue to pave an agriculture path for their family’s future.
“I intend to do what I can to encourage the next generation of farmers to be successful,” he says. “And I want to help that process in any way I can.”
As an owner of McBride Meats Company, Matthew splits his time between the processing plant in South Pittsburgh and the McBride Angus Farm in Manchester.
Sirloin, ribeye, ranch steak, and ground beef are a few of the items customers can purchase from the freezer display at the farm.
Paul Sheppard, left, purchases a box full of various cuts of beef he selected with assistance from Matthew McBride.
By Page Haynes,
Contact phaynes@ourcoop.com