Facility typesHarvest · further processing · cold chain
Regulatory frameUSDA FSIS inspection · state MPI
Core driversThroughput, live supply, offtake
Common programsUSDA B&I · SBA 504/7(a) · processing grants
Standard delivery10–15 business days
Fee basisFixed, never contingent
Three numbers decide the project
Every protein processing file comes down to throughput, live supply and offtake. Throughput is what the line can actually run at, allowing for shift structure, labour availability, downtime and the yield of the specific species and cut mix. Live supply is whether the animals exist within a haul radius that does not destroy the margin. Offtake is whether someone has agreed to buy the product at a price the model assumes.
Small and mid-sized plants fail on the second and third far more often than the first. A plant sized to a regional shortage of harvest capacity still needs producers committed to filling the schedule week after week, and a buyer base beyond the founding sponsors. We evidence both: producer inventories and herd or flock data within the haul radius, existing plant capacity competing for the same animals, and letters, contracts or documented buyer relationships behind the sales plan — with the gap stated plainly where the offtake is aspirational.
Inspection status is a financing question
Whether the plant operates under federal FSIS inspection, a state Meat and Poultry Inspection program operating under a cooperative agreement, or a custom-exempt arrangement determines where the product can be sold, and therefore what the revenue line is allowed to assume. A model that prices product into interstate commerce from a facility whose inspection pathway does not permit it is not a pricing error; it is a viability error.
We take the inspection pathway as a scoped input: current status or the application stage, the requirements outstanding, the timeline the sponsor faces, and the effect of each pathway on addressable markets and realised price. Grant-funded expansions carry their own reporting and matching-fund conditions, and where a grant is assumed in the capital stack, its status is disclosed rather than folded silently into sources.
What the study documents
- Capacity model — head or bird per hour, shifts, uptime, yields by cut, and the resulting saleable pounds.
- Live supply — inventories in the draw area, competing plants, haul distance and shrink.
- Labour — availability and wage levels for the specific roles, which is the constraint most models understate.
- Cold chain and logistics — storage, freight and the distance to the buyer base.
- Offtake and price — buyers, terms, and realised price against published market series.
- Coverage — projections through ramp-up, stressed on throughput, yield and price simultaneously.
Written for the program reviewing it
Protein plants are commonly financed with a USDA guarantee, an SBA loan, a processing expansion grant, or a stack of all three. Each reviewer wants the same evidence in a different order. We scope the study to the strictest reviewer in the stack at the outset — the five components of 7 CFR Part 5001 where USDA is involved — so one document satisfies the file instead of three overlapping ones.
Standard delivery is 10 to 15 business days from a complete data room, and the fee is fixed and never contingent on the finding.
Frequently asked questions
How big does a plant need to be to be financeable?
There is no minimum. Viability is a function of throughput against fixed cost, the haul radius for live supply, and committed offtake — a small plant with contracted supply and buyers can underwrite better than a larger one built on a projected shortage.
Does the study cover the inspection application?
We analyse the pathway, its requirements and its effect on the addressable market and price. Preparing and filing the inspection application itself is the sponsor's work with its regulatory advisors.
Can grant funds be shown as committed?
Only if they are awarded. Applications in process are disclosed as such, with the effect on the capital stack shown both ways, because a reviewer will discover the difference anyway.
What is the most common reason these projects fail underwriting?
Offtake. A capacity case with no documented buyers, or with buyers who are also the sponsors, leaves the revenue line unsupported — and that is the line the whole credit depends on.
Do you analyse labour availability?
Yes, explicitly. Wage levels and the availability of specific processing roles in the local labour market are modelled, because staffing shortfalls show up as reduced effective throughput long before they show up in the wage line.
Which programs do these files usually run through?
USDA guaranteed lending, SBA 504 and 7(a), federal and state processing expansion grants, and conventional debt — frequently in combination. We scope to the strictest reviewer in the stack.
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