What the plant pays you today. What the same beef brings through your pod.
Today you haul your cattle to somebody else's plant and get paid by the live pound. A pod on your ground sells the beef instead, keeps the truck parked, and fills the rest of its 5-head days with the producers around you. Drag the sliders to your operation and see the project budget your ranch can carry.
Your cattle
Today you haul your cattle to a plant and get paid by the live pound. With a pod on your ground the same animal sells as beef under your brand, and the truck stays parked.
USDA AMS 5-area fed steer price, week ending October 4, 2026.
USDA ERS all-fresh retail beef value. Move it to your market.
- One steer sold live
- $2,970
- The same steer as retail beef
- $5,412
- You clear selling live, per year
- $293,820
Your neighbors and your hang time
The harvest pod takes 5 head a day and the system cuts and wraps on site. Slots your own cattle do not fill are processing you sell to the producers around you. How long you hang the beef decides how much aging space you need.
Each aging pod holds 25 carcasses on the rail. At a 7-day hang, 1 keeps up with the harvest floor. Fewer means fewer head a year.
5 head a day per harvest pod, five days a week, fifty weeks a year. Open slots are revenue your neighbors are driving out of state for today.
Financing
The budget below depends on what the money costs. Equipment and SBA lenders usually want 10% down; this assumes that.
8% is the base case, a typical SBA rate today. Try 10%, the SBA cap, as the stress case.
What this quick version assumes
A crew of 4 at $20/hr plus 49% for taxes and benefits (one person per 250 head a year, cutting included). Packaging $45 a head. Selling your own beef at 10% of sales. Utilities, repairs, and supplies $144,000 a year for the system, plus $36,000 for each added aging pod. Insurance 3% of the project. One harvest pod. Hide, offal, and tallow sold raw at the USDA drop value. Cattle at 1,350 lb live. Operating costs come from a 2023 University of Wisconsin-Whitewater feasibility study of a turnkey modular plant. The full report on the discovery call replaces every one of these with your numbers.
Below $5,970,000 the pod pays you more than selling live. A lender looking at this cash flow could stretch to about $6,440,000 (1.25x coverage), but past $5,970,000 you would clear less than you do today.
Want the full report for your operation?
On a discovery call we run the detailed version with you: your crew, your site and power, your hang time, your financing, and the system priced for your configuration. You leave with your numbers in writing.
Book a discovery callText these numbers to somebody
Makes a picture of your per-head numbers, sized for a text or a post. Same figures as above: gross and illustrative.
Figures come from your inputs, public USDA price data, a manufacturer's capacity quote, and a university feasibility study. They are before income tax and depreciation and do not pay you for your own time. Illustrative only, not a financial performance representation, a price quote, or a promise of results.
Like the number? The next step is a discovery call.
We run the full report for your operation: your configuration, your site, the system priced for it, and the financing stack that fits. Producers who complete the funding intake first are considered first.