Westerheimer Schlachthaus: Reorganization and sporting weekend!

Westerheimer Schlachthaus: Reorganization and sporting weekend!

Westerheim has changed a lot in the last few months. After internal conflicts, the Westerheim rural slaughter community is now facing restructuring in order to distribute responsibility across several shoulders. The mood within the club has noticeably improved; the butchers work together harmoniously and teamwork is running smoothly again. New contacts are now available: Georg Baumeister, Margit Weber, Daniel Armbruster, Hermann Schrapp, Reinhard Bäumler and Joachim Burr. If you have any questions or concerns, you can also contact the biosphere and Rainer Striebel, like this Swabian newspaper reported.

A special highlight for all Westerheim residents is the SV Westerheim sports weekend, which will take place from June 27th to 29th, 2025. It all starts on Friday with the first company Gaudi team competition, followed by an after-party with “Die Roten Lederhosen”. On Saturday, leisure teams can compete in the lawn volleyball tournament before being invited to the traditional Bavarian white sausage breakfast on Sunday. The younger ones also get their money's worth: a Bambini and F-youth tournament as well as a play street for the little ones invite them to take part. And the Sunday shopping season will round off the celebrations, while the rural slaughter community in Walter Schuhe's yard will offer a large selection of homemade sausage and meat products.

Slaughterhouse in transition

The Westerheim slaughterhouse plays a central role in regional agriculture and is to be transferred to a lease with regional users. The community has set up a transition period until the end of 2024, but finding a suitable slaughter community is proving challenging. A corresponding project to form a slaughter community for the Swabian Alb biosphere area started in July 2023, supported by the Wanzel engineering firm from Reutlingen. The aim is to gain knowledge about regional slaughter and to pool the interests of the region biosphaerengebiet-alb.de reported.

An event in October 2023 already resulted in 47 binding responses from interested parties. In December 2023, the first steps were prepared to found the association “Rural Slaughter Community in the Swabian Alb Biosphere Area”, which was finally launched at the end of April 2024. The board consists of Georg Baumeister as a farmer, master butcher Paul Russ and other members from agriculture. The next steps include coordinating the lease with the municipality of Westerheim and investing in cooling capacity as well as a trailer for mobile slaughter rp.baden-wuerttemberg.de.

A call for support

With a clear goal in mind, the rural slaughter community continues to look for butchers for direct marketing and mobile slaughter. Margit Weber encourages the public to support the slaughterhouse by shopping, especially during the upcoming sports weekend. Supporting members are also welcome to promote sales activities.

The development of the slaughterhouse and the founding of the slaughter community are exemplary of the efforts to create a sustainable regional value chain, which also serves to preserve biological diversity in the biosphere area. The people of Westerheim and everyone interested are invited to actively participate and work for a strong regional community!