Throughout the towns scattered through East Missouri, there are always little nuggets of gold to be found. These nuggets can take shape in the form of people, niche monuments, little parks and sometimes even businesses. Snuggled in the St. Charles County area is the township of Josephville, which is the home of Josephville Meat Processing.  

Josephville Meat Processing is a meat processing facility, co-owned by Adam Richardson. Inside, employees work tirelessly in cutting up, cleaning, wrapping and storing all sorts of meat. Individuals

can buy beef in bulk, usually by the pound. This allows people to side step the middle man that grocery stores act as, saving people money. They also offer their processing services to hunters who bring in deer during hunting season.

“We deal with a lot, cows and hogs, though we don’t near the same number of hogs as cows,” Richardson said. “We also do deer, we do about 800 deer a year, though sometimes we have to turn it away. It’s not guaranteed work.”

The way the facility operates is fairly simple. Local farmers will send their cattle to be slaughtered and processed to be sold. Some of that is sold commercially at stores, but much of it is also sold straight from the facility. In addition to selling in bulk by the pound, customers can also purchase specific cuts of meat like ribs, chuck, sirloin, tenderloin, the whole nine yards. Currently, Josephville Meat Processing typically expects to process about 900 cows a year.

One of the things that makes Josephville Meat Processing stand out from other meat processing facilities is its capacity for community outreach. Josephville Meat Processing connects to the locals by providing their services to places like churches, weddings and other events that are happening around town.

“We do a lot with the church, like picnics and little festivals, stuff like that,” Richardson said. “We also do retail, we do some cooked products, smoked barbeque pigs.”