It was the panicked calls of buyers after the online, Covid-era livestock sale in 2020 that spurred Jose Garcia, Jr. to come up with a new plan starting the next year — he was going to block off the weeks following the Park County Fair to devote to processing as many of those animals auctioned off as he and his team could handle. 

The problem in 2020 was, Garcia was already packed with animals from area farms and ranches at that point and wasn’t able to accommodate many fair animals. 

“It was just a mess,” he said. “But it worked out in the end.” 

Ahead of the 2021 fair, Garcia worked with the fair so that now, buyers simply have to say they want to use Jose’s Meat Processing and they’ve got a slot reserved. Garcia works to have all Park County Fair animals processed before the end of August, ensuring those buyers in their home county get priority before those of other fairs around the Big Horn Basin and beyond. 

The deal has continued to pay off more and more each year. This year they processed more than half of the 30 steers sold at auction and a bunch of the auctioned hogs and lambs.

Then they do the same at other fairs, including in Big Horn, Washakie, Hot Springs and Fremont counties. 

They process quite a bit of the county fair livestock, he said, “it's nice because that’s the real start of our busy season.”

Garcia said his father was initially unsure of blocking off time to devote to fair animals; it’s been a big success and they’re handling more animals each year. 

Garcia likes to admire the quality of the animals brought in to be slaughtered after often selling for top dollar at the Saturday auction. 

“It's cool seeing all of them come through,” he said. “And then how clean those animals are … it’s the craziest thing to see like, how much these guys really do, and all the work that they put in it, and then it ends up paying off at the end.”

He said his team is “grateful and blessed” to be a part of the process. 

“We hope that everybody is  just really liking what we're doing with it,” Garcia said. “And I hope that it all continues to grow, and people see that we are really taking care of their animals, and we're making sure that these guys get the most out of it as possible.”