Meat + Poultry - September 2005 - 44

EDITOR'S NOTE: As one of MEAT&POULTRY's most-read contributing
editors, Dr. Temple Grandin and I, for the past four years, routinely talk
about deadlines, story ideas and general housekeeping issues related to the
magazine. During these exchanges she also tends to briefly bring up interesting topics that perhaps don't warrant immediate, in-depth editorial coverage,
but worthy of me jotting down. Sometimes they relate directly to an industry
issue. Other times we sidetrack to child development topics, parenting issues
or how she's managed to thrive as an autistic.
Some of the more interesting industry-related themes that reoccurred included how the first center track restrainer came to be and where; how challenging it is to take technology and inventions from concept to reality;
and how the use of video cameras on the kill floor can be used to
improve, rather than condemn plant operations. But it's not possible to
discuss these topics with Grandin without her unique brand of humor
and her no nonsense outlook on life revealing itself. For someone who
claims to not have any use for small talk or idle chit chat, I have found
her quite engaging and hope to capture that in the pages of M&P.
There are plenty of other topics Grandin was willing to expound
on, but we targeted just three topics for this report. Over the period of
several months, Grandin and I carved out a couple of hours on Tuesday
afternoons to discuss her insight on these topics during a series of casual
and conversational interviews. What follows is a report on our discussions,
which were both informative and entertaining.
Grandin's ability to teach, her knack for storytelling and obvious passion for other living things have left memorable impressions on thousands of
people, in and outside of the meat and poultry processing world. My hope is
that this report, "Tuesday's with Temple Grandin," reminds readers of how
fortunate the industry is to have this ambassador telling the story of what
used to be the most veiled part of the processing plant. - JC

y Kevin

Photo b

Molony

Restrainer

EVOLUTION

By Joel Crews

jcrews@sosland.com

he first center track conveyor
restrainer system was installed
in the Utica Veal plant in Utica,
N.Y. That was in 1985. At the age of
38, Temple Grandin spearheaded the
effort to get plant officials to try a
more efficient and more humane way
of moving calves through the back end
of the plant. During the installation of
the system, Grandin was working on
her doctoral thesis at the Univ. of Illinois, Champaign. It wasn't the ideal

timing for her to be under taking two
daunting tasks, but she'd worked too
hard for many years getting the system developed to the point that a plant
would be willing to try it and she was
determined to see the job through.
The evolution of the restrainer
began in the early 70s. There was no
urgent need or public outcry for a
restrainer. But in Grandin's view, that
didn't mean that the restrainers of that
period (V-type restrainers) couldn't be

improved. The equipment tended to
serve its purpose and the popular belief was "why fix something that isn't
broken?" Void of any urgency, investors were not exactly beating down the
door for a better mousetrap.
"In those situations there's a real
need to have some outside money,"
she says, to work on the R&D for new
equipment.
R&D for what would eventually
be Grandin's center track restraining

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Meat + Poultry - September 2005

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