Meat + Poultry - November 2005 - 106

The Insider
High school meat lab

International exposure

Centerpoint High School, the only school in Arkansas
that teaches meat cutting, recently opened an expanded
meat lab at its Amity, Ark. campus.
The lab is actually a pilot plant that slaughters,
processes and packages meats for area
residents. The custom-exempt facility
is the only processing plant within a
40-mile radius, according to instructor Troy Buck, who started the meatcutting program 20 years ago.
The expanded facility, which spans
10,000 square feet and cost about $1 million, is now large enough to accommodate
up to 20 students on the kill floor and is four times
larger than before.
Buck teaches seven meat-cutting classes a day and about
90 students go through the program each year. Students
primarily work with beef and pork, but have processed
sheep, goats, buffalo and elk. About 40 area companies
regularly hire graduates of the program, which doesn't
teach poultry cutting, but does equip students with enough
food safety knowledge to work in poultry plants.
During deer season, Buck says the lab processes up to
25 deer per day and the operations are more like "running a business than an education facility."
Safety and sanitation are the first two things students
learn in the lab. "I eat stuff that comes out of here, and I
want it to be right," Buck says.

Many visitors to
MEAT&POULTRY's
booth at the American
Meat Institute's Meat,
Poultry & Seafood
Industry Convention
and Exposition, held
this past month, were
surprised to see lights, cameras and plenty of action. During an afternoon appearance by animal handling expert
and M&P contributing editor Dr. Temple Grandin, a film
crew from the British Broadcasting Corp. had its cameras
rolling as visitors lined up to get Grandin's autograph on
copies of "Tuesdays with Temple," a supplement recently
published by M&P.
The BBC was on hand obtaining footage of Grandin as
part of a documentary about her work with the meat industry and her role in advancing research into the treatment of
autism. The film is scheduled to be broadcast this spring.

Brought to you by
MEAT&POULTRY Magazine
Cartoon by Bob Bliss

Prime Ribbing

Over herd
"It is definitely a trend, and not a fad.
... It is going to come down to feed-
you got feed, you got organic."
- Joe Smillie, vice president, Quality Assurance International,
discussing the organic meat segment at last month's Meat
Industry Research Conference

Just the flax, ma'am
Processors looking for a value-added niche to promote their products may want to consider selling beef
enriched with Omega 3 fatty acids. North Dakota
scientists believe they may be only a year or two away
from producing beef fortified with boosted levels of
heart-healthy Omega 3.
Researchers in North Dakota are studying how
feeding cattle flax, which is high in Omega 3, affects
levels of this fatty acid in the final product.
Scott Kronberg, a livestock nutritionist with the
Agricultural Research Service at the Northern Great
Plains Research Lab in Mandan, N.D., said enrichment levels need to be higher, and this might be accomplished through feeding the cattle "protected"
flaxseed, which couldn't be broken down by microbes
in the stomachs of ruminamts. Move over fish oil, a
more delicious alternative is on the horizon.
Have an item for The Insider?
E-mail it to: theinsider@sosland.com

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November 2005

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Meat + Poultry - November 2005

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