This is in response to the Bismarck Tribune article from Aug. 3, "Meat plant set to close."

The article states:"Burleigh County ranchers Alvin and Juanita Braun started the plant to provide beef for their North Dakota Branded Beef store in Bismarck. Juanita Braun said when they opened their beef store, the only way to get meat that was processed in North Dakota was to do it themselves."

She said there's just too much to do when it comes to operating a farm, running a retail store and owning a meat processing plant. "When it comes down to it, it's a personal decision," she said.

They did all this by themselves. And when they started the meat processing plant, they were the only North Dakota meat processing plant and now they have to compete with two corporate North Dakota meat processing plants. Are we North Dakota people going to let two corporate meat processing plants put a North Dakota family-owned meat processing plant that created 22 jobs out of business? They also sell some other North Dakota products in their store, which helps those manufacturers, too.

About 15 years ago, I asked our state officials to create a state marketing system for our state manufacturers. Even though the North Dakota State Mill andElevator already has a marketing system, everything fell on deaf ears. Our officials are working for the big corporations, that's where the money is.

We have bought North Dakota Branded Beef products and were proud enough to use some of the products for gifts. I hope more people will do the same thing.Using their products for gifts is a good way of advertising for them. They also ship products.