For the 160 employee-owners of Superior Farms, a lamb processing plant in Globeville, this election could determine the fate of their jobs. With ballots arriving this week, Denver voters will determine whether to ban slaughterhouses in Denver. Initiated ordinance 309 would prohibit the construction, maintenance or use of slaughterhouses within the city, leading to the closure of the only slaughterhouse in Denver: Superior Farms.
Workers like Isabel Bautista, an operations manager who has been with the company for 24 years, are afraid of what’s to come if the measure is passed. With tears in her eyes, Bautista reflects on her time working at the plant and the support she has received from the company to raise her children as a single mother.
Working at the plant has provided Bautista with the opportunity to advance within the company, allowing her and other employees to better their lives and provide for their families. 99% of their employees are Hispanic and have come from different countries. But as much as they try not to think about it, and as election day gets closer, the employees are becoming nervous and worried about what the future holds.
“I feel very frustrated and upset,” Bautista said. “I have worked really hard since day one to earn what I have and it’s not just me, other employees too, so why do they [proponents] want to take away what took us a long time to accomplish? I want to know which company is going to hire me to be their operations manager if this passes—because nobody has reached out to any of our employees.”
The initiative was proposed by the animal welfare organization, Pro-Animal Future. Powered by a grassroots campaign and volunteers, the organization is working towards ending animal cruelty and factory farming. They have been working on this initiative since last May, and after gathering over 15,000 signatures and receiving signature validity, the grassroots organization has focused on getting out into the community and talking to people since November.
Olivia Hammond, Pro Animal Future communications lead, shares some of the reasons behind the organization’s decision to focus their efforts on this initiative. “There is this huge industrial-level facility located right within the Denver Metro area,” Hammond said. “We now know that it’s causing issues with pollution in Globeville. Science has shown us there’s major public health risks around intensive animal farming and we have this in a densely populated area.”
Superior Farms has been operating in Globeville for over 70 years and is the largest lamb-packing facility in the country, processing about 1,500 lambs a day. The USDA-certified meat travels across the country through food retailers like Walmart and Kroger.
On a local level, many restaurants depend on Superior Farms meat to provide their customers with dishes created with fresh, locally sourced products. The facility is the only lamb processor of scale in the Mountain West region that produces Halal-certified meat, adhering to requirements of Islamic dietary and ethical standards.
“Every package that goes out is labeled with a Halal-certified sticker,” Bautista said. “We have USDA inspectors and Muslim workers in the facility every day; without them, we can not operate.”
Walking past the packaging corridor, Bautista can’t help but think about the other companies in the area working with Superior Farms that will also be affected by the ban. The ban would impact supply companies such as Packaging Corporation of America, which supplies boxes; Cryovac, which supplies sealer bags; and ranches like Harper Livestock, which only raises lambs for Superior Farms.
“The companies will be affected too,” Bautista said. “The employees, their families—they [proponents] aren’t seeing the big picture here.”
Jennifer Martin, a Colorado State University professor and extension specialist in the Department of Animal Sciences, along with a research team of two agricultural economists and a fellow CSU professor, took the opportunity to generate this report and show consumers how the closure of one facility can cause so much change to the economy and provide consumers with this information.
“We felt that in this particular case, the average consumer doesn’t know that whenever one thing changes, there are potential impacts that can happen elsewhere,” Martin said. “So we felt there was an opportunity to talk about this from a meat industry perspective.”
The report takes consumers beyond the consequences of immediate job loss and local impact; it introduces facts and data supporting the impacts consumers will face if the measure passes.
“People will see the impacts of this at grocery stores definitely, and possibly in Colorado restaurants,” Martin said. “It will be harder for Colorado consumers to find Colorado-raised lamb—so if we lose about 20% of our lamb supply in the U.S. that is housed in Denver, it is most likely that lamb supply will go away in the U.S., we will see the demand for lamb be filled by Australia and New Zealand.”
According to Martin, Superior Farms lambs will most likely need to be transported to other states following the closure; however, most meat processors across the states are at capacity, resulting in a capacity gap with an increase in supply, ultimately causing lamb meat prices to rise. Martin and her team speculate that if lamb processing stops in Denver, lamb consumption will decrease due to the high cost and the consumer’s willingness to pay due to inflation.
“I think the whole hope of our paper is acknowledging the consequences and allowing voters to make their choice and vote as they wish,” Martin said. “Wherever we land, there are tradeoffs, there are consequences—whatever the decision of this ballot initiative is, just making sure the voters are informed of those.
Kevin Flynn, Denver’s District 2 councilman, released an editorial in the Gazette in August titled “Slaughterhouse ban is not the Western way,” in which he depicts the unfairness of targeting one business and attempting to change the law to impose personal preferences on others.
“Singling out a facility and forcing its employees to shut down a business they own is wrong,” Flynn said. “It does not deserve to be run out of town by a group that isn’t even from Denver. Many people may not know the ins and outs of how a slaughterhouse works, but it’s worth understanding that USDA inspectors are present at all times. Production cannot happen without inspectors on-site. And the facility, like all working animal production facilities in the U.S., is heavily regulated by federal mandates.”
On Oct 9th, Pro-Animal Future held a press conference at Broken Shovels Sanctuary in Henderson. Surrounded by sheep and goats, the organization announced the acquisition of video footage depicting an injured lamb and lambs being dragged and neglected inside the Superior Farms facility.
Working with the Animal Activist Legal Defense Project at the University of Denver’s Strum College of Law, Natalie Fulton, the organization’s spokesperson, described the footage as “a glimpse into the dark reality of our food system” and believes that investigations like these are the only window into the nightmare animals face inside slaughterhouses. She urges voters to be courageous, face uncomfortable truths and speak up for the voiceless because animals cannot fight industrial animal farming.
“Banning slaughter in Denver won’t fix everything but it’s a step in the right direction for those who want to move away from intensive animal agriculture,” Fulton said. “If we can’t show mercy to defenseless animals, we’ll never show mercy to each other—measure 309 gives us the opportunity to create a kinder future for everyone.”
When asked about the footage, Bautista stated that Superior Farms prioritizes the livestock and their welfare. Bautista, who has worked in every department of the facility, is aware of what goes on in the plant and has stated unequivocally that she would not work there if the livestock were mistreated, but with USDA inspectors on-site full-time, the facility always follows regulations.
“I am not concerned about those videos because I know what we do here,” Bautista said. “We don’t hide anything and have our doors open for anyone who wants to come in—they are trying to make a negative impact on the people without knowing the truth.”
On October 11, Bautista showed the production area, one of two operating departments, during Bucket List‘s tour of the facility. We were unable to witness the entire slaughter process, but we were able to walk through the meticulously cleaned facility, observing its layout and functionality. Color-coded helmets help employees identify their positions as they work with the lamb product to meet the high demand for Colorado lamb.
When discussing the slaughterhouse ban with Denver voters, Hammond describes how they were shocked to learn about the only slaughterhouse within city limits. During their voter outreach, volunteers took the time to have deep conversations about the initiative and share their beliefs and values on animal welfare across communities in Denver.
“It’s been amazing being out there and talking to Denver voters,” Hammond said. “Recognizing that many of them share those feelings around holding this discomfort around factory farming, industrial slaughter of animals, and the use of animals for fur—we’re trying to bring these issues to the mainstream and have people thinking about them.
“What we feel like these do is really bring the power to the general public instead of placing them in the hands of the corporate powers and legislators, who might not always represent the will of the public,” Hammond said. We really feel like this is putting power into citizens’ hands to create a world they want to see.”
While nerves rise in the Superior Farms plant, Bautista and her coworkers stay optimistic. Unsure of the outcome, they will continue to fight for their jobs and work as hard as they always do. Employees at Superior Farms urge voters to gather all of the facts before making a decision that will affect their way of life.
“Before voting, people should do a little more research, learn more about Superior Farms and see the pros and cons—see what they [proponents] say and what we say,” Bautista said. “We have nothing to hide; the doors are open, and we are always ready for any audit, every day. That is our goal—we are transparent in that aspect.”
Do you feel strongly about this issue? We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments, and remember to vote on or before Election Day, Tuesday, November 5.