2. Adding Value in the Meat Goat
Industry
• Add value to live goats by:
• Increasing sale weight
• Increasing live grade
• Offering ‘desirable’ weights
• Offering at peak demand times
• Increasing uniformity of sale groups
• (Avoid over-conditioning)
3. Adding value, continued
• Add value to goat meat by:
• Increasing carcass grade (conformation/yield)
• Offering most desirable carcass weights
• Limiting cooler time/shrinkage
• Most consumer prefer whole or half carcasses
or ‘cubes’
• Fabrication of carcasses into cuts using
• Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications
4. Adding value, continued
• Add value to goat meat by ‘further-processing’
• Caveat: traditional consumers are not yet into
such goat meat products (via curing, smoking,
marination, irradiation, ready-to-cook, heat-
and-eat, or case-ready fabricated cuts).
• This disinterest could be due to lack of
exposure, not to aversion per se (particularly
among non-traditional consumers)
5. Constraints to Adding Value
• Consumer resistance (to products and costs)
• Deboning issues
• Product processing costs
• Yield of product
• Lack of research re goat meat products
• Poor utilization and prices of packer by-
products and cost of offal disposal
6. Producer Issues
• Without ‘retained ownership’ post-farm,
producers can have no participation in
packing, processing, and merchandizing
• In theory, producers could organize and
perform all marketing functions; if so, they
would generate and retain all profits.
• This could be done as a corporation or as a
producer cooperative or as ‘custom-hire’
7. Conclusions
• None of the three options for retaining
ownership seem doable in the present context
• because of entrenched channel players and
because of the horrendous costs involved, and
not least, because a producer cooperative is a
way more Christian notion than can be
organized and sustained over time by typical
goat raisers; too much togetherness is lethal
