Quapaw Tribe hosts groundbreaking for meat processing facility

Monday, August 29, 2016  

The Quapaw Tribe is breaking ground this Wednesday on a $1 million meat processing plant.

The 25,000 square-foot facility will process beef, bison, and pork products and serve as a training facility for universities in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri. It's being built with a $800,000 grant from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and $200,000 from the tribe.

"We are very proud and excited about this facility and the various objectives of the project," Chairman John Berrey said on Monday. "It is a natural extension of the other agriculture programs we have already started, and gives us even greater control over the excellent meat products we are feeding to our people and in our hotel and casino restaurants."

The facility -- said to be the first of its kind in Indian Country -- is a natural extension of the tribe's agricultural efforts. The tribe operates the Quapaw Cattle Co., a cattle and bison farm that will supply meat for the new plant.

A second business, Quapaw Mercantile, sells products from the farm to consumers. And beef and bison from the farm appear on restaurant menu the Downstream Casino Resort.

The groundbreaking on the Quapaw Tribe Meat Processing Plant takes place at 10am on East 66 Road, about 1/4 mile east of the Quapaw Casino in Quapaw, Oklahoma.