Vandevanter Meats has been serving the Flathead Valley in northwestern Montana since 1945; located in Columbia Falls, the processing facility has catered to a wide variety of producer needs – including certified organic operations – while also selling their specialty line of beef jerky and value-added meats through their sister business, Montana Jerky Co. In recent years, owner Ron Vandevanter has been gearing up for retirement, but without an interested buyer, he’s been forced to consider closing the business entirely; that’s where the idea for the Glacier Processing Cooperative (Glacier Processing) was born.
Producers Step Up to Develop New Processing Cooperative
