Frozen Food Locker Cooperatives With and Without Slaughtering Facilities: Production and Performance

The frozen food locker industry peaked during 1950 at 11,600 plants, of which 925 were cooperatives owned and operated by farmers. After 1950, these plants began adjusting to technological and economic changes within the industry and to the changing socioeconomic conditions that have characterized rural trade areas in the past two decades. The managements of many frozen food locker cooperatives, once the industry’s pacesetters, failed to make the necessary adjustments in their programs that would permit their organizations to survive. Consequently, cooperatives went out of business faster than other locker plants. In 1965, an estimated 385 of the industry’s 7,200 locker plants were farmer-owned and controlled. Twenty frozen food locker cooperatives—five large-volume plants with and five without slaughtering facilities, and five small volume plants with and five without slaughtering facilities were studied to evaluate the differences in their operations. The purpose of this study was to determine if frozen food locker cooperatives with livestock slaughtering facilities have been more successful in generating addition al volume of output, and achieving a higher level of labor productivity and greater operating efficiency than those without slaughtering facilities.