Jennifer Miller

jenmille@dmreg.com

The famous phrase, "If you build it, he will come" probably would not have had the same shelf life if the movie it came from was called, say, "Meat Locker of Dreams." It just doesn't have the same poetic ring to it as "Field of Dreams."

Still, Ty and Bobbie Gustafson built Story City Locker, their unpoetic dream, and people are indeed coming. Even their crack take-down, butchering, chef-ing and packaging staff came to them, not the other way around.

A meat locker is a very specific sort of dream. Not the life's work that little boys and girls play at — like school, or doctor or store. In fact, these days, most kids wouldn't even know what a meat locker is, let alone pretend they were running one.

The Gustafsons, who opened Story City Locker in October of 2013, would like to see that change, so that kids — and plenty of adults who have grown up in the fluorescent-supermarket-plastic-wrapped-precut-prewashed era — won't have to say, "What's a meat locker?"

At least for the Gustafsons, a meat locker is a place to not only harvest and process meat in a responsible way, but to give local farmers exactly what they want; to support local, small production and sustainable farming; and to educate people about where their meat comes from. Their philosophy: "Small production farming decreases environmental stress, increases traceability and promotes appreciation for healthy food and eating." Most of the farmers they work with are on the same page.

SCL processes for others mostly, but also sells products in their small retail space. In accordance with their philosophy, all the beef, pork, lamb, goat, chicken (and fish from Iowa's First) is traceable and comes from animals raised without added hormones or sub-therapeutic antibiotics.

Take business leap

The urge to open a locker didn't strike the couple out of the blue. Ty, 43, grew up on a farm and also spent time hunting with the Dale and Shirley Haupert family, who own the Atlantic Locker. Over the years, he helped them at their locker and enjoyed it. As he and Bobbie, 46, got closer to making the leap, Ty spent a lot of time there, learning the business from them. Bobbie called the Hauperts "super friends and mentors… . We wouldn't have been able to do this without them."

While the project was something Ty had mulled over for years, missing out on too much of his two teenage daughters' lives is what eventually pushed him to go for it.

"I always had jobs that required me to travel internationally," Ty said, "and I was missing a lot of stuff." Bobbie knew Ty wasn't happy and so she encouraged — and joined him — to launch the business, putting her design degree to work on the company's look, logo and website.

"We're not trying to be all things to all people," Bobbie said. "When we were planning the facility, several people told us it was too small. But more is not always better. We don't need more, we just need enough."

Rare business model

According to Dr. Ted Smith, veterinary supervisor for the Iowa Meat and Poultry Inspection Bureau, who helped the Gustafsons wade through regulations, Iowa has about 75 to 80 state-inspected lockers, but very few follow Story City's business model.

"The way they do things requires more effort and extra steps," he said. "And they're dealing with organic and grass-fed animals, unlike most plants."

"(In the locker business), we're not something you see every day," Ty Gustafson said. "And so many people encouraged us as we were going down this rabbit hole." The Gustafsons knew they were sort of going off-road with their ideas and so spent a lot of time researching. "As we began to talk to people about the idea — Practical Farmers of Iowa, Iowa State Extension, the Leopold Center — everyone was just so excited," Bobbie said. "We kept waiting for the red flags, but there were none. Even the banker we used had a soft spot (for the project) because he had grown up in the business. It wasn't hard to convince him."

The Story City community has embraced the locker, too. People bring kids and grandkids in to see what a real meat locker looks like, take a tour or buy Albert Donhowe's ring bologna. The late Donhowe was a longtime Story City resident and meat cutter. His trademark bologna was resurrected by SCL's staff chef, Brian Malone, from the current Story City mayor's hand-written copy of the recipe. It is always – if you're doing it right – cooked in the same pot with a mess of Iowa sweet corn.

Malone who has cooked far and wide, including at Aunt Maude's in Ames, also creates sausages, brats, jerky and other meat-based products as well as the popular sandwich of the week. A recent example: "The 'Swagger' Sandwich. SCL braunschweiger, smoked sauerkraut, radish, red onion, pickle and house-crafted brown mustard on a ciabatta roll."

British hogs

The locker's reputation for above-and-beyond customer service and outstanding quality is well-established and has drawn customers like Angela and Jason Johnson of Lucky George Farm in Derby, another newbie to the Iowa food scene. The Johnsons specialize in heritage breeds of meat animals, such as Large Blacks, an endangered breed of British hogs.

"They have all of our four-footed business," Angela Johnson said. (Their chickens are processed elsewhere only because SCL's schedule was so busy.) "They render our lard and make our value-added products, like the bangers (British-style sausages). All the meat that we sell at the Downtown Farmers' Market is processed there." This, despite the fact that Lucky George is far closer to the Missouri border than to Story City.

"We raise British hogs and SCL is willing to do custom English-style cuts for us and to work with us on sausage recipes," she said — like those bangers and what the Brits call gammon (a cured bacon-like product, but made from the thigh and rump instead of the belly).

"They have an amazing willingness to work with us on ideas, and that creativity screams volumes to us," Johnson said. "And the fact that they have retail space allows us to get our products into more mouths and gives us exposure in a northern market. The drive we make to Story City is worth every penny."

Custom labeling, custom cuts

"Our focus is on customer service," Ty said. "We cater more to farmers (than most lockers) with custom labeling and custom cuts, which takes longer and is more expensive. But we're always looking for ways to make the experience better."

This includes little things like wrapping all the ground beef in brown paper instead of white, so it's easy to spot in the freezer. And bigger things, too, like making sure the facility is spotless (Ty estimates that about 35 percent of working hours are spent cleaning) and designing the cutting room (which is visible to retail customers) to be more worker- friendly.

Ty also noted that they strive to create a less stressful atmosphere even for the animals. SCL practices humane slaughter techniques and is in the process of being certified with the Animal Welfare Approved group. Many of its client farmers have also earned AWA's stamp.

The Gustafsons are well aware that there will always be some controversy about a facility that kills animals. And they have thought long and deeply about what that means in their business. "There is a psychological point when an animal becomes meat, and that point is different for all of us, and it's something we all think about," Bobbie said. "Our goal is to be respectful and to minimize waste — food waste is a real cultural issue for us.

"Our farmers are very intentional in the way they're raising their animals, and I think they appreciate bringing them somewhere where that's honored."

The Gustafsons are also the first to admit that an abattoir/meat market is not a glamorous business, and it's not for everyone, but they do worry that the way they do things is becoming a lost art. "There's room for more (of these small lockers) in other small towns. We should all be helping each other out" to keep the specialized skills and small-scale ethos alive and thriving, Bobbie said.

"If we can inspire others to do it, we have done our job."

Story City Locker

FIND IT: 236 W. Broad St., Story City

INFO: 515-733-6328, www.storycitylocker.com

RETAIL HOURS: 11 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday and Wednesday through Friday; 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday; 8 a.m.-noon Saturday

Off the Eaten Path

This occasional series tells the stories of places across Iowa that by the very fact of their existence can affect what and how we eat.

How I chose Story City Locker

As I worked on stories with some of central Iowa's best and most interesting chefs and farmers over the last nine or so months, I kept hearing Story City Locker's name. Bobbie and Ty Gustafson's locker focuses on locally produced proteins, naturally raised in a sustainable way. Unusually, they also have a chef on staff who creates recipes and products (their beef sticks and jerky have quite the following) for the locker's retail area. Their small-scale, carefully planned business both echoes an older way of doing things, and pushes our food industry toward a smaller, healthier, hands-on future.

JENNIFER MILLER covers the Iowa food and restaurant scene for the Register. Have a story idea? Email Jennifer at jenmille@dmreg.com, call 515-699-7073 or on Twitter @JenniFoodM.