CALF_News_Feb_March_2019

6 CALF News • February | March 2019 • www.calfnews.net M any considered it a long shot at best. There were too many local and state regulations to overcome. Two previous efforts to operate a successful packing plant had failed. Eric Brandt thought differently. Five years later, One World Beef (OWB) Packers has nearly 400 employees and is harvesting more than 2,000 cattle per week. CALF News has followed the progress of Brandt and his family’s efforts to buy, refurbish and eventually get the neces- sary permits to operate the Brawley, Calif., facility. After clearing one hurdle after another (and the state of California has plenty), the facility is helping sup- port the regional cattle feeding industry and boost the regional economy by bringing back desperately needed jobs to the area, which has historically suffered the highest unemployment rate. “It was a huge feat getting this plant back on line,” Brandt says.“We’re blessed with the team we have. Our employee numbers are growing. We’re starting to get more cattle from other feedyards down here. We have the plant and we have the capacity for many more cattle.” Brandt and his family have been in Imperial Valley since the 1930s and feeding cattle since the 1960s. His father, Bill Brandt, a pioneer in the industry, still runs the Brandt Cattle Co. feedyard that currently has about 125,000 head on feed. Eric’s brother, Mark, manages the family farming and ranching opera- tions, which provide many feedstuffs for the feedyard. They ventured into natural, no-hor- mone beef in the 1990s and have con- tinuously sought the most feasible harvest and marketing oppor- tunities for those cattle. Those opportunities now include OWB Packers. Brawley Beef The history of the packing facility goes back to 2001 when the Brandts were among several regional cattle feeders who established what was then Brawley Beef. They wanted a better market for their cattle after smaller packers halted opera- tions in the Los Angeles area. But too many state environmental requirements, along with stagnant cattle markets, forced the feeder owners to sell to a larger company, National Beef, in 2006. National eventually gave up on the operation and the plant sat idle for several years. That cleared the way for Brandt to buy the plant in 2014 and establish OWB Packers the same year. It took more than three years to obtain state and local permits to operate what was still one of the newest packing plants in the United States. Now, OWB Packers is an operating facility that takes a different approach to the cattle they buy and the markets they service. Source verification, sometimes for each animal, is documented. That has helped lead to greater sales to China, Japan and, more recently, the European Union. Brandt notes that another of his enti- ties, One World Beef, is the sales and marketing platform and is independent of the packing plant itself. “We sell and market various brands we believe in, whether they are our own or other brands,” he says. “Brandt Beef, consisting of the brands we own, is the flagship of the operation. By Larry Stalcup Contributing Editor One World Beef Keeps Growing Diversified California Packer Expands Markets, Branded Products Where From Here? Continued on page 9  LEFT: OWB Packers has boosted the Imperial Valley economy by adding nearly 400 jobs and pumping much-needed tax dollars into the community.