Rural Meat Production and Processing Centre (RMPPC) - An Important Marketing Model

The existing system of meat production and marketing in urban centres in India suffers from a number of disadvantages like transporting live animals over long distances in ill-equipped vehicles, loss of weight during transit, involvement of middlemen between livestock owner and the urban butcher, slaughter of animals in old and ill- equipped and congested slaughter houses, and contamination of meat both in slaughter houses as well as in retail outlets. To overcome many of these disadvantages and losses, Central Leather Research Institute(CLRI), Chennai, planned and executed a project on 'Meat Handling Systems' and established a Rural Meat Production and Processing Centre (RMPPC) funded by the International Development Research Centre(IDRC), Canada. Under this system, sheep are directly procured from the livestock owners, slaughtered in RMPPC and packed mutton is sold in nearby urban centres. An attempt is made in this paper to analyse the performance of this new model in meat marketing.