(TRENTON) – New Jersey Secretary of Agriculture Douglas Fisher was in Bergen County last week for the announcement of a USDA Rural Development $4.2 million investment in Goffle Road Poultry Farm from the Biden-Harris Administration as part of the American Rescue Plan to increase and expand meat and poultry processing capacity in New Jersey.

The New Jersey funding is part of more than $223 million in grants and loans nationwide to support 32 independent processing projects to build capacity and increase economic opportunities for meat and poultry processors and producers around the country through the first round of the Meat and Poultry Processing Expansion Program (MPPEP). U.S. Congressman Josh Gottheimer and New Jersey Rural Development State Director Jane Asselta delivered remarks during the announcement as well.

“The strains on our nation’s supply chains, which began during the early days of the COVID pandemic, and which continue to this day, greatly underscore the need to increase and enhance localized processing of livestock products both in New Jersey and beyond,” Secretary Fisher said. “This effort will help address those needs in the poultry sector and can serve as a model for other meat products in the Garden State as well.”

The NJDA helped guide Goffle Road Poultry Farm owners Joseph and Brian Silvestri and their staff through the application process that led to USDA Rural Development’s investment.

“This investment in Goffle Road Poultry Farm, a fourth-generation family owned and operated business, represents a critical investment in local food supply infrastructure,” Asselta said. “For 96 years, the Silvestri family has served the local and tri-state area helping local farmers and producers process their poultry. Their expansion project will help them increase their business by a projected 300 percent, build a new stand-alone market, and provide halal poultry to meet a growing market need. I am pleased USDA Rural Development could help strengthen this local foods business and am looking forward to the next round of grant funding so we may help other New Jersey processors, just like Goffle Road Poultry Farm.”

Goffle Road Poultry, in Wyckoff, will use the investment to purchase state-of-the-art equipment associated with expanding its existing USDA processing facility and retail operation. The processing facility expansion will include renovation of the current 15,000 square foot building to construct an evisceration room, offices for USDA and Goffle staff, lunchroom, lockers, and a training facility.

The expansion will also include building a 15,000 square foot refrigerated extension for further product processing, refrigeration, and freezer storage. Processing capacity will increase 150 percent by 2026. In addition, the company will create a satellite pickup and drop-off area for over 10 area farms within and tangential to New Jersey, currently unavailable and highly desired by producers. The expansion will allow the company to expand further into the organic and halal markets both of which are experiencing increasing consumer demand.

MPPEP was designed to support capacity expansion projects in concert with other private and public finance tools. Today’s announcement is the first round of funding made available through Phase I of MPEPP. Additional announcements are expected in the coming weeks. The USDA will also soon begin taking applications for a new phase to deploy an additional $225 million, for a total of up to $375 million, to provide gap financing for independent processing plant projects that fill a demonstrated need for more diversified processing capacity. For more information about MPPEP, click here.

“Since President Biden laid out a commitment at the start of this year, USDA has worked tirelessly to give farmers and ranchers a fair chance to compete in the marketplace,” U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack said. “By jumpstarting independent processing projects and increasing processing capacity, these investments create more opportunities for farmers and ranchers to get a fair price, while strengthening supply chains, delivering more food produced closer to home for families, expanding economic opportunity and creating jobs in rural America.”

MPPEP is part of the USDA’s initiative to strengthen critical supply chains and the food system. The program will support new investments in infrastructure for food aggregation, processing, manufacturing, storage, transportation, wholesaling, and distribution to increase capacity and create a more resilient, diverse, and secure U.S. food supply chain.

This investment is one of many actions the USDA is taking to expand processing capacity and increase competition in meat and poultry processing to make agricultural markets more accessible, fair, competitive, and resilient for American farmers and ranchers, and builds upon the Department’s efforts to transform the nation’s food system. Additional information on all these programs is available at www.usda.gov/meat.

###

To learn more about the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/NJDeptofAgriculture and www.facebook.com/JerseyFreshOfficial or Twitter @NJDA1 and @JerseyFreshNJDA.