Montana rancher tackles hunger with meat donation program

MISSOULA, Mont. — The COVID-Pandemic hit the economy hard and Montana saw it first-hand, with Montanans in need of food.

In time of need Montanans don't back down from a challenge, instead they put up a fight.

Matt Pierson a rancher and soccer coach from Livingston decided to take action and help his community.

Pierson created a non-profit company, calling it Producer Partnership.

The mission is to end hunger in Montana by delivering nutritious meat to food banks, schools and senior centers across Big Sky Country.

"It is the people that take care of the land properly and in a good manner that are going to make the difference,” Pierson said.

Producer Partnership started out with Pierson donating animals and asking friends to do the same. To get the animals processed they would have to be taken out of state. Pierson quickly learned that people were in need of food not just locally, but statewide as well, so he built his own processing center.

"If somebody wanted to donate an animal to one of their local, you know a food bank, a senior center, school, a charity, whatever they would have to schedule getting it processed. They'd have to pay for the processing and pick it up get it delivered and now all they have to do is call us and we can coordinate everything else and take care of it,” Pierson explained.

“It makes it much easier for us,” Potomac rancher Justin Iverson said. “We have a lot of things going on I don't necessarily have the time it would take me a full day to haul cattle all the way to Livingston and back. We just had to coordinate with them when they were coming through to pick them up and make sure we were able to be there on the same day.”

Producer Partnership continues to grow with the help of operations like the Montana Food Bank Network. The statewide organization exists to procure resources to then redistribute out across the state to food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, senior centers and school-based programs to help them be more effective in feeding their local communities.

"This program really is about Montanans helping Montanans,” Pierson said.

"We serve all 56 counties across the state on a regular basis and it was just a natural marriage," Montana Food Bank Network VP/COO Brent Weisgram said.

"We see so many people that they want to help their own communities, they want to help people in their areas but the logistics and the cost of it are too much," Pierson said.

"We got in touch with each other and he said hey if I can get producers to start donating beef can you guys distribute it to pantries and senior centers and statewide that need it and we said absolutely." Weisgram added.

Producer Partnership receives no federal funding and is the only federally inspected non-profit purchased and operated facility in the United States and they don't operate like a typical meat processor.

"Because we take in donated animals, we don't charge the end user for the processing, and I think that is the big key in what we do,” Pierson said.

Covid impacted the funding schools would receive, directly affecting the quality of meat used in schools. The goal is not to just feed people in need but provide nutritious protein that can be found in lots of different animals, not just beef.

"We do cows sheep goats pigs bison, we've done them all," said Pierson.

"Most of these schools are working off commodity beef that's coming in from somewhere else that isn't 100% beef it's 20% soy, whatever it is," Iverson said.

"Another reason that we wanted to open our own facility because getting especially a lot of the smaller animals or the bigger bison in is really tough and now we have that ability to be able to take any animal that people want to donate," Pierson said.

"Having 100% beef locally produced near the schools, near the senior centers, I think is a really nice option for them to have," Iverson said.

"Donating, by helping, by especially feeding kids, that we can start to educate people on what that product actually is," Pierson said

Montana has over 150 food pantries locally and statewide. Providing nutritious beef is vital for them.

"Especially in those rural communities where there's a lack of donor availability or retail grocery stores that sometimes they can get donations through," Weisgram said.

The work Producer Partnership is doing greatly impacts lots of organizations and groups. The Montana Food Bank Network now has money freed up to feed kids.

"It allows us to take the funds that we need so desperately and we're able to then use it to purchase food for our backpack programs for kids that need meals on weekends when they're not getting school lunches, we use it to secure costs of drivers and sending our semis all over the state. It helps us increase the amount of distribution we're able to do on a consistent basis," said Weisgram.

“When you go to the grocery store when you go to the meat aisle that's an expensive part of your ticket. Matt has found a niche that has been able to help with that since we started this relationship the producer partnership has already secured over a million dollars’ worth of donated ground beef that they have then been able to pass over to us to help distribute statewide,” Weisgram said.

Let's not ignore our elderly. Senior centers like Seeley Lake are crying out for help. The Seeley Lake Senior Center provides about 400-600 meals a month. Roughly 100-150 meals a week. And that gets costly.

“We've had a lot of setbacks with the rising food costs and labor costs,” Seeley Lake Senior Center Board Member Michelle Wretling said. “It's just made it really hard to get funding.

“We worked a deal with Seeley Senior center where they bought the animals, we donated part of the cost, they purchased the rest of the animal and then we donated the transfer and transportation to Producer Partnership,” Iverson said.

Depending on the time of year, Seeley Lake Center has a 100-150 member relying on meals and some depend on the meals on wheels services. Donations, and the volunteer efforts keep the food cost between $15-$18 a meal. According to Jon Kimble, the President of the Seeley Lake Senior Center, without the generosity from the community, the senior center most likely wouldn't be able to continue their operations.

“That has been a really great benefit that we've been able to take advantage of lately,” Kimble said.

“We were contacted by producers' partnership and they arranged for us to get a discount and a member of the public donated the cost for the packing of two beefs and from that we were able to receive 840 pounds of meat, which is really an offset I think at the minimum rate of $5 a pound. You know, that offset us by $4250 that we otherwise would have had to spend on that,” said Kimble.

For kids in schools, and seniors, getting a nutritious meal is problematic. Producer Partnership has found a way to connect schools, senior centers and ranchers together to help get these people fed.

“A tremendous amount of their fixed income is going just to surviving,” Iverson said.

“And so if we can help with one of the basic life needs, you need food, you need water, you need air, you need shelter, if we can help with one of those, I think it's a fantastic opportunity.”

“This is an absolute lifeline for many of these seniors,” Wretling said.

“They have mobility issues and financial burdens and so we're able to provide meals on wheels for them and help them make sure they're getting meals here in the center or in their homes.”

“A lot of them rely, this is totally all they rely on,” Seeley Lake Board Member Barbara Knopp said.

“They only get their meals here. They don't get them anywhere else. They can't afford to go out. Some of them can't even get out. So, this provides their basic needs,” Knopp said.

Producer Partnership is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization so if ranchers were looking for another reason to get involved, there's also a tax benefit.

"They'll give you a tax certificate saying you donated this much in value of processed meat to the senior center,” Iverson said. “We can take that to our tax repair and have that help us with our annual taxes, so that's a really nice option for folks to have as well."

"It is a great way for a producer to use, you know a cull animal or an animal, it's no longer in production to be able to get a little bit of value back in probably most importantly, then they know where the animal ends up,” Pierson said.