Central Kentucky Custom Meats

Jerome Salyers and Neil Buck had an idea in early 2001 that they could build a slaughter facility in rural Casey County and make it succeed.

There were only a few places in the surrounding area where farmers and hunters could get their animals processed and only one was USDA certified.

Investing their own money, along with securing financing from the bank, these two entrepreneurs began building Central Kentucky Custom Meats on a ridge in their rural community. To get the operation off the ground the initial facility was outfitted with used processing equipment.

“In the early years money was tight,” said Salyers. “We had a lot of challenges, like any new business would, one of which was just being able to pay the bills month to month.”

Salyers though threw himself in the day to day operations of his new endeavor. He greeted the customer, killed the animal, processed the meat, and oversaw the office work day in and day out. He wanted to create a business that wasn’t what people expected when they arrived at a slaughter facility.

“The main thing we want people to understand is that we do things different here at Central Kentucky (Custom Meats),” said Salyers. “We are a clean facility and we work hard to keep everything from the kill floor to the freezer areas clean to ensure to our customers they are receiving a safe product.”

The dedication to the customer has worked for Salyers and Central Kentucky Custom Meats. Over the past seven years all the used equipment has been replaced with new, and the operation now has employees trained in meat cutting. Of course that hasn’t changed Salyers dedication to the day to day operations.

“I still cut up most the meat that is processed here, I’m not an office guy I like to be involved in the operation,” said Salyers. “Plus I like to talk to the customer, so I do the unloading of the animals, unloading of the freezers when customers come to pick up meat, and I work the counter when people stop in to purchase fresh meat in our storefront.”

Creating a Niche
“We realized early on that to make the business succeed we had to have a niche,” said Salyers. “We wanted to be better than others, to be the best.”

Salyers and Buck decided early on that their niche would be to provide USDA certification, individual packaging of animals, a focus on retail cuts of meat, vacuum packaging all cuts, and an all around high quality of service to customers. This attitude has paid off for the small company.
Salyers explained that the first year a farmer would call with animals for processing, and they could usually fit them in the next day. Even during deer season, they didn’t shut down the livestock slaughter because they couldn’t afford to lose the business.

Today that has all changed.
On average Salyers says they kill 40 to 50 animals a week, with two days a week just USDA kills. They also tend to stay booked from two to three months out.

“What I do is I have a calendar book just like a doctor and I book so many animals a day,” said Salyers. “You call me and tell me how many animals you want to bring in, and I tell you where I’m at in scheduling, for example it is April and I’m scheduling now for June, and we get you scheduled in the book.

It isn’t just beef and pork that is brought to their door, this USDA plant has the capacity to slaughter a wide range of animals either custom or USDA certified.

“We have process buffalo, we do about 15-20 elk a year, and once we had a moose brought in that was killed in Canada,” said Salyers. “Then of course we kill beef, pork, goat, lamb, sheep, and deer. During deer season they are so busy with processing deer they set aside three to four weeks just to process deer alone.
“We process the deer like you would 100 years ago, debone it hanging up” explained Salyers. “We vacuum seal everything. We do not use paper wrap, we do not mix the deer, everything is kept separate, even the summer sausage for each deer is cooked and packaged separate.”

It is this attention to detail that has helped Central Kentucky Custom Meats build their vast clientele base. They now have clients that come from Indiana and Tennessee to get their animals processed.

The Poultry Addition
Over the years people that were bringing their USDA beef to Central Kentucky Custom Meats began asking Salyers why they didn’t kill chickens. At first Salyers dismissed the idea, because he couldn’t see the numbers to make it profitable, then more and more people started calling looking for USDA certified poultry processing and he saw potential.

“One of the main reasons I decided to go into chickens was the timing,” explained Salyers. “June, July and August are slow months for beef and pork, so instead of letting my workers go home at 20 hours we would go over to the chickens during that time and get 40 hours a week.”

Once he saw the business potential in poultry the research and planning began. Salyers quickly realized he would need a separate facility to process the poultry and began making plans to add on to the current operation. This time he decided to seek a little financial help from the Kentucky Agriculture Development Board and that is when KCARD came into the picture.

“KCARD came in and helped me take my idea and put it into a formal business plan for the grant application,” said Salyers. “They have been great about working with me through the entire grant process.”

“Jerome was a pleasure to work with in developing the business plan for the expansion,” said Brent Lackey, KCARD Business Development Specialist. “It was very obvious that Jerome understood and managed the business very well and that he had thoroughly researched adding poultry processing services to his product mix.”

In February 2009, Central Kentucky Custom Meats was awarded a zero interest loan from the Agriculture Development Board for the construction of a three side 42x42 building that will be built on the back side of the current slaughter facility. The facility will be a USDA certified facility, and all poultry processed will be USDA certified and ready for retail sale.

Along with poultry process, the loan will allow Central Kentucky Custom Meats to purchase equipment to expand their services to their red meat clients. They are purchasing equipment so that they can begin making sausage links, bratwursts, and other products for their customers.
Salyers has already begun work on the project and hope to have everything in place to begin processing USDA certified poultry in August.

“Right now if everybody were to come that has called me in the past year about chicken processing, I could be doing eight to ten thousand chickens this year,” said Salyers. I believe the interest is real and can be profitable, or I wouldn’t be investing my money into this expansion.”