When the 2020 pandemic stalled meat processing plants, a veteran butcher named Ben Buchanan accelerated a project he had been tinkering with for months: a mobile trailer capable of handling whole-animal processing. “I really gotta get this thing done and get out there and start doing my thing,” he recalled, driven by the sudden shortage of facilities for farmers retiring their livestock.
Based in Mt. Lebanon, Buchanan’s venture, Unified Fields does more than run a trailer. The company offers on-the-job training for new cut-workers and provides consulting to help entrepreneurs launch or upgrade their own processing sites, addressing a critical gap in the Southwestern Pennsylvania food economy.
Oct. 1 local lab brings together growers, processors and policymakers
On Oct. 1, the Sherwood Event Center in Wilkinsburg hosted Pittsburgh Local Lab: The Future of Food Production a convening organized by the community-resilience nonprofit Mechanism. Attendees included Unified Fields, the Chatham University Center for Regional Agriculture, Food and Transformation (CRAFT) and the Pittsburgh Food Policy Council. The gathering was the first step in a foundation-funded series that will culminate in a roundtable later this month, contingent on broad community agreement that a stronger local food economy is essential.
Mechanism’s senior program manager Laura Masulis opened the session, emphasizing the region’s “amazing talent and expertise” that often remains siloed. She noted that producers routinely wrestle with finding suitable land, funding equipment, arranging reliable deliveries, and securing buyers—all while navigating a regulatory maze that can feel opaque to small operators.
Land access, shared logistics and cooperative models
Coalition manager Clare Clark of the Pittsburgh Food Policy Council highlighted land scarcity as the first hurdle. Many parcels in Allegheny County feature steep slopes, limited sunlight, or contaminated soils, and short-term leases discourage growers from investing in soil improvement. Clark explained that the council’s land-access committee is drafting a guide that outlines options, application procedures, timelines and costs, while also urging integration of community gardens and housing.
At the same time, Chris Murakami a professor at Chatham University, presented a case study from the university’s BRIDGES project. The pilot paired the urban farm Eden Hall with several smaller growers, bundling their diverse harvests into a subscription box for city residents. While the concept proved attractive to consumers, Murakami admitted that “the biggest challenge was just the logistics and transportation of it,” underscoring the need for coordinated collection and delivery systems.
Murakami also described a shared-fund model in which participating farms allocate a slice of sales revenue to a communal pot, used collectively for equipment purchases or soil remediation. Such pooling could smooth the financial peaks and valleys that often stall individual farms.
Processing collaboration and future funding pathways
For meat processors, economies of scale are equally vital. Buchanan pointed to a Washington County processor facing steep planning costs before expanding its facility, noting that “meat processing is a very capital intensive industry. It’s not a tech unicorn, it’s not gonna generate 10x returns.” He suggested aggregating trim—smaller cuts that frequently sit idle in freezers—across several small plants to create a reliable supply of ground meat for large institutional buyers.
Mechanism’s Director of Program Strategy Tanu Kumar moderated a panel that explored these ideas, stressing that the project operates on “two levels at the same time, trying to get some quick earlier wins and then also some longer-term bigger investments.” The discussion revealed that existing purchasing networks largely favor large corporations, leaving small farms and processors to struggle for market access.
Masulis concluded by outlining the next steps: a seven-person local steering group will synthesize workshop insights into a set of proposals to be presented at an Oct. 22 roundtable for funders and policymakers, supported by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. She clarified that Mechanism intends to act as a catalyst rather than a permanent owner, hoping “local folks take these ideas and move them forward.”
