Platte Livestock Helps Community During Trying Times

BY MACKENZIE JOHNSTON

The spread of Covid-19 has caused profound hardships on our rural communities.

Platte Livestock Market owners, Maryand Marshall Ringling and Scott and Chantelle Kirsch recently got together and decided it was time to help their community. Both families have growing kids to feed and realize the importance of nutritious meals. With that in mind, they decided to sell ground beef at cost from the purchase of cull cows at the livestock market.

“Scott and I were talking about the toll COVID-19 has taken on our local communities and ag producers. We have never been big believers of handouts, so we decided selling ground beef at cost would be a way to help people out without just giving them something,” said Chantelle. From there, Chantelle took the idea to Mary and Scott who were entirely on board.

On the evening of Friday, April 17, they got together in the parking lot of Platte Livestock and sold packages of hamburger at $3.50/lb. They had a limit of 20 lbs. per person to avoid hoarding. This limit was also set in place to be sure that everyone would have an opportunity to purchase this local, nutritious beef.

Before going forward with this plan, Mary and Chantelle contacted the local grocery store to be sure to not step on anyone’s toes. The grocery store was incredibly understanding and expressed interest in finding some way in the future to cut out the middleman and buy directly from the livestock market and slaughter at the local locker. This route would deliver a higher quality product to consumers, allow for lower beef prices, and still leave some room for the grocery store to make a small margin.

“It’s not really a good deal for the grocery stores, not really a good deal for the farmers, not really a good deal for the lockers either. After the pandemic passes, we hope to work something out in order to work together and supply our community with beef. Possibly do something direct from the livestock market to the locker, then to the grocery store and cut out the middle guy. Not only help consumers out, help everyone out,” said Mary.

Due to COVID-19, there have been shortages of beef across the nation because of logistical issues and packing plant closures. According to Mary Ringling, ground beef at the local grocery store has increased to $5.30 per pound. This price is sure to increase with the probability of more plant shutdowns leading to even more protein shortages.

Throughout this endeavor the feedback has been extremely positive, and the co-owners plan to continue to sell this local ground beef. “I hope we can do this for quite some time. We’d like to work out the kinks to create a good system to further help people out,” says Chantelle. “There is enough stress in our everyday lives because of the pandemic, we just hope we can do our part and relieve some of that stress.”

The two families came together owning Platte Livestock when Scott and Marshall both bought partial shares in 1999. From 1999 to 2004 there was a third partner in the business. Then in January of 2004, the third partner sold out and the Ringlings and Kirschs have been co-owners ever since.