Halfway Packing Company
Location: Halfway, Mo.
Manager: Ted Ballinger
History of Company: Halfway Packing was started in 1979 after the Southwest Rendering plant in Springfield, Mo., closed down. In the early years, Halfway Packing picked up downed horses and made pet food, which was very common for the time. In 1982 the company started picking up cattle, and they’ve stuck primarily with downed cattle ever since. “We’ve expanded through the years,” said plant manager Ted Ballinger, “we’ve added more trucks and a wider area that we work in.” The original owner closed down the business on Dec. 30, 2008, because of a failing hide market. But the plant was bought in 2009 and re-opened on Oct. 28, 2009.”
What are the products/services offered?
“We’re picking up downer cows/horses off farms over many of the counties around here,” Ted added. Pickup is free for Polk and Dallas counties. There’s a $29 fee for pickups in Greene county and a $39 fee for any other surrounding county. “If the animal is a downer but not yet dead, we can put the animal down and we do all the work to haul it away from a farm,” he said. The advantage of having dead stock picked up is there’s no risk of contamination from the corpse into water sources. Ted noted, “All a farmer has to do is give us a call and we’ll come to their farm and make it really easy for them.”
What challenges does your company face?
“The government has new regulations on packing and rendering, which call for the spinal cord and brain to be completely removed from the carcass. These regulations cause more input costs for packing plants. Also, sometimes farmers don’t want to pay to have a dead animal removed from their farm, but we couldn’t make any money if we didn’t charge a little.”
By Jordan Haymes
