North Fork Packing

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North Fork Packing We are a family owned and operated WSDA licensed custom exempt beef, pork, sheep, and wild game processing facility located in Oso, WA.
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Congress is back in session, and it is assumed that coming up they will be voting on portions of the farm bills.Disappoi...
10/13/2026

Congress is back in session, and it is assumed that coming up they will be voting on portions of the farm bills.

Disappointed to see that the National Cattlemen's Beef Association does not support Mandatory Country of Origin Labeling for beef.

They will never receive any of my association dues, as I do not need to put money into an organization that lobbies against what I stand for.

We either stand together as consumers and a nation to support American ranchers and supply chains, or our only concern is the cheapest possible protein. It is a clear dichotomy to me and my wallet. 

I strongly believe consumers deserve transparency into the incredibly complex international beef supply chain.

If you see “product of USA” and “product of Argentina” side-by-side and still choose imported beef and price influences that decision, (If MCOOL does even effect the price. I think I saw that all of the imported ground beef barely drove down the cost at all) that is your prerogative as a consumer, but you should have that information at your fingertips.

In the meanwhile, consumers should be happy to know custom exempt beef doesn’t even need a MCOOL, as it is a given it is a local product.

On the eve of our processing week we take a moment to appreciate the seriousness of what we are trying to accomplish her...
10/13/2026

On the eve of our processing week we take a moment to appreciate the seriousness of what we are trying to accomplish here.
In the next three days we will send 21,000 lbs through the cutting room, all lifted by hand many times over, which is approx 12,600 lbs of take home meat or 38,000 meals (estimating 1/3 a lb of raw meat per meal).

My favorite thing about being in this industry is our only metric of success is against ourselves. Our numbers to beat are our former numbers of production. 

There is as many seats at the table here, as many as people actually want to step up and fill. There is room for everybody.
We wish all local slaughtermen, farmers, homesteaders, and processors nothing but profound success.
Especially during this time of year, this is when a lot of local farmers are putting meat in freezers and local families are feeding themselves.
It is community level success required or no local supply chain at all will remain: a collective effort to keep local small scale farming and distribution alive.
I don’t know about you, but I like to eat. The labor given to the next three days here means something real.
What a beautiful industry and purpose to be a part of.

10/12/2026

Without a doubt, the most important part of a custom exempt butcher shop operation is its refrigeration.

This is our drip cooler, where hot carcasses go into a cooler to within 24 hours come down to temperature.
This room has very high-powered refrigeration to hold steady at 36°, despite these 20 heavy hot carcasses coming into it. These carcasses hold a lot of heat and as soon as an animal is dispatched the race begins to get the carcass cooled down. If the heat is not pulled out of a carcass on time, the meat will sour.
The airflow and circulation provided by the fans start to dry the carcasses out and prepare them for dry aging for two weeks on average.

Until they are chilled, the hot carcasses are kept in a separate room as the chilled ones, as to not introduce moisture and heat into the dry aging room.
Within 24 hours they will be chilled down and moved over into the dry age room, where from there it is a constant battle of humidity and temperature to keep the bacteria down and the carcasses actually dry for the rest of the dry aging process.

Last week we had the manager of another local processor over who commented how dry our carcasses are, which we took as a real badge of honor.

Last month we had over a former local meat processor who closed up shop a couple of decades ago. He mentioned one of the reasons why his business was no longer sustainable was the cost of refrigeration. We can 1000% sympathize with that.

Anyhow, a tremendous amount of money and effort goes into refrigeration and optimizing it, and we view it as one of the most important things that we do.

Every time I post a picture of my coolers I get some pushback on why we are not hanging in halves. We are a small custom shop where everything is handled by hand. A heavy quarter of a beef is hard enough to handle. We are not a large scale USDA facility where everything is mechanized. It is very common in the custom exempt industry to hang quarters.

Finally, this is why a carcass is weighed before it comes into our facility, and we charge for our service off of the original carcass weight and not take home weight. We definitely don’t maintain this refrigeration, build this infrastructure, and offer the dry aging for multiple weeks for no money.. This is a big part of what customers are paying us for.

Headed up to the shop this afternoon to add six more racks to the freezer. After processing 37 animals last week, I was ...
10/11/2026

Headed up to the shop this afternoon to add six more racks to the freezer. After processing 37 animals last week, I was not able to clear enough meat out of the freezer this weekend to turn around and process the 30 animals we are going to process this upcoming week.

These racks give us a little bit of space as I send text messages to everybody who has an order at our shop to come pick up this week.

On Saturday we started brain storming what it looks like to do a freezer addition because the space management at the scale is a bit stressful.

Although this is also a metric of success, moving this many orders in and out of our shop each week, it is a serious choke point in this industry. 

Dear custom meat / farm direct shoppers across the nation: please pick up your order in very prompt fashion. Your custom processor is also fretting over freezer space in the fall I’m sure.

A customer sent me a picture of their freezer after picking up this weekend. 😍I always love these texts, as there is som...
10/11/2026

A customer sent me a picture of their freezer after picking up this weekend. 😍

I always love these texts, as there is something so primally satisfying about filling a freezer, and it is fun to partake in a customer’s enthusiasm.

Look how great that ground beef packaging works out.
No wasted space.

So fun story …A couple weeks ago the FB overlords invited me to be their creator program.Despite saying I would never ta...
10/11/2026

So fun story …
A couple weeks ago the FB overlords invited me to be their creator program.
Despite saying I would never take or make money on this social media page, my boundaries there quickly crumbled when they offered me free money for doing the thing I love doing: posting on FB.

Anyhow, I am tickled to announce: I now make actual USD off of every vegan comment.

Keep at it, guys!

Dear Kristin No Name, with no actual review, when we haven’t had a customer named Kristin in months, who left us a one s...
10/10/2026

Dear Kristin No Name, with no actual review, when we haven’t had a customer named Kristin in months, who left us a one star review on Google …
you’re a jerk.

Awhile ago this would have crushed me, but at this point I take anonymous haters as a badge of honor.
We are putting ourselves out there and advocating for our industry in a visible way, and if that means catching some strays in the form of fake bad reviews, so be it.

If any real customers want to go to Google and leave us a real review, please do!

Oct 10, 2026Onsite slaughter record to break: 20 beef in the drip cooler by 1:30PM
10/10/2026

Oct 10, 2026

Onsite slaughter record to break:
20 beef in the drip cooler by 1:30PM

To all the haters online offended we slaughter animals, keep this in mind. ✌🏻
10/10/2026

To all the haters online offended we slaughter animals, keep this in mind. ✌🏻

The packing slips from just this week after cutting 37 animals.Currently every cart in our freezers is full and the rack...
10/09/2026

The packing slips from just this week after cutting 37 animals.
Currently every cart in our freezers is full and the racks are 2/3 full.

I have until Tuesday to clear out enough freezer space to turn around and process another 30 animals.

This is why prompt customer pickups at this time of year is *so* important.
We are NOT a cold storage facility, meaning set up to hold orders in the freezer indefinitely.

Address

25575 Whitman Road
Arlington, WA
98223

Telephone

+13606311531

Website

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