By Jennifer Dorsett
Field Editor
In what many hope will be a much-needed boost to the domestic lamb industry, the Ranchers’ Lamb of Texas processing plant in San Angelo will come back online this fall after being purchased by Double J Meat Packing.
The new owners, the Colorado-based Hasbrouck family, plan to have the plant, now named Double J Lamb, Inc., running within a few months.
In an interview with the Texas Farm Bureau Radio Network, Jeff Hasbrouck said the family is eager to bring another harvesting and fabrication facility to the U.S. after the recent bankruptcy of Mountain States Rosen.
The closure of the Greeley, Colorado plant—the second-largest lamb processing facility in the U.S.—had many sheep ranchers worried about somewhere to sell their animals this fall.
“We also own Double J Lamb Feeders, so for our customers, we’re a custom feeding operation,” Hasbrouck said. “The [Colorado] plant that closed down processed about 350,000 lambs a year, and the big majority of those were Mountain States Lamb Co-op members. Our customer base is mostly those co-op members, and we felt like we needed to do something to keep the industry going as far as having a place to harvest and fabricate lambs.”
He noted a new plant in Brush, Colo. is set to begin operations in September, but will only facilitate lamb harvest, not carcass fabrication.
“We felt like we had to do something for our customers and for the industry, so we reached out and toured the plant in San Angelo and felt like this was a good fit for us,” Hasbrouck said. “It’s a nice facility, but it just needs a little bit of work.”
The plant should have the capacity to handle animals from Texas, as well as those from other states, Hasbrouck said.
“We own a feedlot in Colorado, and usually, we feed anywhere from 150,000-175,000 lambs a year that would go mostly through the Mountain State Rosen and Superior plants,” he said. “Now, we’ll be bringing lambs from Colorado and western states, as well as supporting the growers in Texas.”
The family aims to begin harvest-ready animals in San Angelo within a few months and begin fabrication about a month later. Once the plant is running at full speed, Double J Lamb will process around 1,800 head a day, according to Hasbrouck.
Ranchers’ Lamb of Texas opened its doors in 1998, and the fabrication facility was added in 2001. The plant shut down in 2005 due to a lack of animals.
But the purchase of the facility is a positive step for Texas, the top sheep-producing state in the nation.
“It’s in great shape. The harvest floor looks great. We’re just doing a few different things to it. We’ve got guys on the ground there, taking applications, contractors working, getting the offices up to speed. So, it’s a work in progress right now,” Hasbrouck said. “We’re hoping to start off with 80 to 100 employees and go from there and see how it works. We’re looking forward to opening it up as soon as we can.”