Overwhleming....in a word....
Daunting....
But not impossible....
........
It's been a goal of mine for the last 4 years to upgrade my retail butcher shop to the highest license available.
Why's that?
1. I can then wholesale meats/cuts , raw or finished, that I produce here.
2. I can Wholesale My Much Sought After Charcuterie.
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If you're new to this side of my work, I'm talking about Jensen Reserve. My Retail Store Front and Butcher shop on my farm.
I opened it in 2017 to offer my prosciutto and bacon to the public.
Not knowing then that I needed a license that I was told was unobtainable here...until recently.
After a long and winding road, the seas parted.....the planets aligned and I was presented with a clear path to make it happen....
I applied and have been assigned a Plant License #!!
......
That's the easy part.
...
Paperwork is my new fulltime job.
Things like writing a:
- Food Defense Plan to have measures in place to counteract terrorism against our food supply.
- Recall Plans in case of....well....you know what that means...
- Additional Certifications....I'm now officially HACCP plan certified to write plans
- Rewrite those HACCP plans for Federal levels
- SSOP/ SOP's...Standard Operating Procedures overall and a Sanitizing Plan
In a nut shell.....
Write down everything we do. Create a log book. Monitor everything.
Thankfully, once it is all in place, it won't require as much of my time to operate under it!
Oh - and fully remodel my butcher shop to go from State Retail Licensing to Federal.
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How long will all this take? I'm targeting a 6 week window.
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Did I mention I'm also overhauling the American Meishan Breeders Association website too? No? Yeah.....that was already scheduled to make it more user friendly and to help gather more details about our hogs.
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Piglets are due in April too!
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I'm SO GLAD I have GREAT HELP here! There's no way I can power through all this alone!
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SO - If I am slow to respond or if you're not sure if I received the message....reach back out! I definitely need your grace and support right now!
Happy Pig nerding!
Laura
