09/02/2026
I like this post from my friends at North Fork packing they do a great job of educating people on the industry. I thought I would share this and add my own educating perspective regarding our operation. North Fork packing is a custom exempt processing shop that means they butcher and process animals for the farmer or the rancher or customers who are are buying the animals directly from the farmer or rancher. They are exempt from federal inspection and federal regulations programs. We on the other hand are a retail exempt operation. What we do is we have our animals butchered at a USDA facility and then after it has passed inspection we can bring it into our shop and process exempt from any further USDA inspection or regulations. We are allowed to sell any and all the beef products. We can sell beef fat, pork fat, bones, meat of any size or cut. Most retail exempt processor don’t process their own beef like we do. Most all the grocery stores and some restaurants have retail exemptions and buy their beef in Primal cuts from the big packing houses and then they cut the animal however they like for resale without any further USDA inspection or regulations programs. A fully USDA meat processor like IGFC (Island Grown Farmers Co-Op) or Del Fox meats have full USDA facilities. That means their slaughter and their meat processing is done completely under USDA inspection and regulation from beginning to end. Those are basically the 3 types of meat processing in the State of Washington.
With hunting season here, this is something I explain to disappointed callers multiple times a day.
Also, no, we are not allowed to by law give it away either.
When we first started this business, I was not familiar with the CFRs and gave away fat and bones just to help the community out and get rid of them.
This triggered a USDA inspection and red taping of my freezer, (triggered by a neighbor’s complaint), and now that I know, I am not willing to ever go down that road again.
We are subject to random USDA FSIS inspectors who check our freezers for product that isn’t tracible back to the original owner.
Therefore, I do not have a freezer full of fat to distribute, even though we process these animals.
This is routinely very disappointing to people who call and honestly frustrating for us in the custom exempt industry.
Even though we are left with the byproducts, we are not allowed to do anything with them by law.
The only way to do anything with our byproducts by law to becoming a licensed renderer. Currently, I only know of one in the entire state.
If there was only one regulatory change in the custom exempt vs inspected world that would benefit us and our local consumers, I think it should be that if a customer declines keeping byproducts such as the fat, organs, and bones, they could go back to the farmer or are now in our possession and thus now are the farmers or ours to distribute or give away.
That is a policy / processing relaxation that could benefit our local industry, distribution, community, and byproduct disposal choke point.
However, because we do not have a federal inspector on site when we slaughter, we are not allowed to retain or distribute the byproducts.
Therefore, answer is NO ….
I do not sell or give away fat. 
Would I like to? Yes.
Are my hands tied by the USDA? Yes.
