Short Creek Farm: Supporting a Local Business in Ways Large and Small
As Short Creek Farm grew, they needed capital — to develop products, increase production, and to scale up in a big way that also helps other small farmers.
A Long-term Professional Relationship
Short Creek Farm founders Jeff Backer and Dave Viola are on a mission to reestablish the connection between good farming, dedicated craftsmanship, and great food. They make sausage, salami, bacon, and other meat products by hand in small batches with exceptional ingredients sourced from independent farmers and craftsmen.
Shortly after they founded Short Creek Farm in 2015, Jeff and Dave applied for a USDA Value Added Producer Grant to develop a line of dry-cured salami. This was a planning grant that they worked with the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund to secure.
We also administer the USDA Local Meat Capacity (Local MCap) program grant. Through that program, Short Creek Meats — the farm’s sister entity that focuses on processing — was able to get a new automated slicer that allows them to increase production of their popular bacon. Before acquiring the slicer, Dave was slicing 1,000 pounds by hand in a day, all of which sold before it was even packaged.
As Short Creek Farm took off, they faced a significant challenge — securing adequate livestock processing services was a big headache. Scheduling far in advance when they didn’t know output was difficult. At the time, most of their production was being done in a small, state-inspected facility in New Hampshire. Plus, they were processing a lot of other products at other plants. In short, the logistics of processing their meat was limiting the business’s growth. They knew they needed their own space.
So, in 2020, they started working on a project to build out a large USDA-inspected processing plant. Naturally, they reached out to us to see how we might work together to bring the plan to fruition. The buildout cost for the facility was set to be over $1 million, and they needed to secure a significant portion of that in loans.
Working Regionally
While the farm is situated on over 200 acres of pasture and woodland in Northwood, New Hampshire, the processing plant was to be located in Kennebunk, Maine. So, Dave and Jeff ended up working with both New Hampshire Community Loan Fund and Maine’s Coastal Enterprises Inc. (CEI). We worked together to help the business bring together the loans and grants that would bring the new plant to life.
Short Creek Meats opened in 2022 as a brand-new, 6,000 sq ft USDA-inspected meat processing facility. Heritage breed pigs are raised humanely at Short Creek Farm, slaughtered off-site, and brought to the Short Creek Meats plant to be processed from start to finish. The meat is cut and ground, mixed with high-quality spices and fresh herbs, held in temperature-controlled rooms for curing and fermenting, and finally packaged and prepared for distribution.
Big Benefits
While Jeff and Dave love selling their products at local farmer’s markets, they've always wanted to get high-quality charcuterie meats into the hands of more customers in the places they shop more often. Opening Short Creek Meats and building their own processing plant has allowed them to expand their relationships with both regional and national distributors. Now, their New England-grown-and-made products can be found across the country in everything from small independent grocery stores to regional or national chains. And with the acquisition of new equipment financed by the Local MCap grant, they’re able to develop a completely new line of pre-sliced salami.
Being able to offer their salami, sausages, bacon, and pork cuts to new markets means their business can support more jobs, continue to model more humane and sustainable farming practices, and introduce more people to high-quality meat products.
Impact Beyond Short Creek Meats
The processing plant has also allowed Dave and Jeff to become processors themselves. The Short Creek Meats facility provides meat processing services for other small farms, allowing those farms to grow their businesses, make new products, and expand their markets.
As Short Creek Meats grows, Jeff and Dave are committed to continuing to partner with other farms around New England. They have expanded their sourcing by buying pigs from local farms for a fair price. This allows Short Creek Meats to continue to expand their distribution, and it allows smaller farms to begin to scale up and reinvest in their infrastructure and businesses.
Fun Numbers
The Community Loan Fund supports regional businesses and smaller food producers because of the greater impact they have on communities and the environment. Learn more about the extent of Short Creek Farm’s national reach, their local distribution, and how they salvage some of the by-products of pork processing. The business is on track to have the following impact in 2024.
27k+
pounds of local pork that will be supplied to University of Maine dining services as part of the Maine Course initiative
~12k
pounds of hide and fatback that will be used by local lobsterman as bait
550+
nation-wide stores that carry Short Creek Farm products
400+
New England pigs Short Creek Meats will process in 2024
Dave and Jeff Tell the Short Creek Meats Story
Sit a bit with the Short Creek Farm co-founders as they provide more details about how we’ve worked with them to grow their business and make their delicious products available to more people.
For a small farming business looking to expand into manufacturing, the challenges of securing financing were considerable. Without the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund, we would not have been able to build out this processing plant and dramatically transform our business.
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