Brandon Clare is breaking ground on big dreams. After more than a decade of ownership of JM Watkins LLC meat locker, Clare and his wife Erin are moving out of their cramped building that dates back to the year 1900.

“We physically can’t do anything more in this building,” Clare said. “It has absolutely no business being a meat locker.”

Some of their equipment doesn’t even fit down the narrow hallways. After the expansion, “we’ll actually be able to do it right, where we take the smoke truck to the stuffer, load it up, and push it through the six-foot doors, instead of a 30-inch hallway,” he said.

JM Watkins harvests beef on Tuesdays. Beef has to be split into quarters the following Monday to take to a smaller cooler so there’s room for the new harvest. “So we’re handling every beef twice,” he said. “It’s just very inefficient. We’ve maxed out our capacity.”

They don’t want to move very far, though.

Plum City, Wisconsin is home to 599 people, situated less than an hour east of St. Paul between Eau Claire and the Twin Cities metro. Despite several meat lockers in the area, JM Watkins’ reputation and location bring in customers from over an hour away.To help fund their expansion, the Clares are leveraging a Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program (MPPEP) grant. In 2021 Congress passed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), enacted by President Biden. ARPA invested $1.9 trillion to fight the pandemic and support a strong, resilient, and equitable recovery. ARPA included $110 million for meat processing expansions like that of JM Watkins to build resilient local food systems. 

“The MPPEP grant was huge, covering up to 30% of the project. It was definitely a contributing factor in deciding to invest in expanding our business,” said Clare. 

The number-two reason? Their son Jordan works in the business, and he wants to make JM Watkins his life’s work.

Brandon and Erin grew up in Plum City. They moved away for 10 years before deciding to raise their family back home. Erin is a veterinarian with a part-time home practice. That work flexibility allows her to manage the bookwork and retail store for the locker most of the week.

When they first moved back to Plum City, Brandon worked long hours as a project manager in the construction industry. Oftentimes his work took him out of town and away from his family. One project required him to spend work weeks in South Dakota for several months. He hated that his kids were growing up, and he was missing it. 

He jumped into JM Watkins without previous experience in the industry. “The only thing I knew about meat processing was I hated cutting up deer, but I decided, ‘I’m going to buy the meat locker,’” Clare said.

He wanted to spend more time with his family. “The biggest selling point was that I could open up the back door and literally see the school where my kids were going,” he said.

With the expansion, JM Watkins will be hiring eight more full-timers and three or four additional part-time employees, providing valuable jobs in tiny Plum City. “Hopefully, we can contribute to getting more people in the area,” Clare said. JM Watkins tries to keep schedules flexible for employees and their families as well.

Attracting new people to Plum City is critical for the town’s future. Graduating class sizes in the town have fallen from Clare’s “large” graduating class of 38 people. He doesn’t want his community to lose K-12 education. “Without a school, it’s hard to keep a town going,” he said.

At the same time, available housing in Plum City is sparse. Outside of town, it’s difficult to find available land for new projects. For their expansion, JM Watkins will move a couple of miles outside of town, where community-minded farmers are giving the business a good deal on valuable land. Having a local processor will allow farmers in the area to avoid shipping costs and keep more dollars in Plum City.

The expansion will help JM Watkins to nearly double its harvest capacity and triple its available space. Currently, JM Wakins can harvest about 18 cattle and about 15 pigs weekly. With the new building, they’ll be able to harvest about 30 beef and 25 pigs weekly.

The new building will expand available retail space from about 60 square feet to 1,100 square feet, allowing them to grow their retail business. The extra space will make it easier for employees to handle equipment and product at the facility. 

Clare is well aware of the toll that meat processing takes on workers’ bodies. With JM Watkins’ old set-up, the 350 pounds of hamburger cut off each beef had to be lifted three times. Processing three or four beef a day meant lifting upwards of 3,500 pounds above your head.

“I see my son doing this, and I don’t want his shoulders to hurt in 10 years,” Clare continued. “So we’re trying to invest in equipment that will help minimize people lifting so much and wearing their bodies out.”

As for that “tired” building from the 1900s? Well, 20-year-old Jordan has some ideas. He’s thinking about cutting deer in that building, his dad said.