Meat+Poultry - March 2023 - 18

COVER STORY
ACADEMIC PIVOT
And then the pandemic struck,
causing a slowdown in activity
at all universities, including
UWRF, and hindering access
to meat plants, where outside
visitors were widely seen as
unnecessary risks to the wellbeing
of workers. It was then
that Kate Creutzinger was hired
to work with UWRF to conduct
and oversee research at the
Animal Welfare Lab as part of a
state-funded program called the
Dairy Innovation Hub.
" Her position is a co-op with
UW-Madison that's focused
on applied research that will
benefit the dairy industry.
She was hired specifically for
her expertise in behavior and
welfare, which makes me very
happy because she's trained
in other species as well, "
Vogel said.
Hiring Creutzinger was
somewhat of a tipping point
Kurt Vogel's students
attest to the fact that he
is a hands-on instructor
who spends as much
time teaching in the
UWRF meat plant as he
does in the classroom.
for how the Animal Welfare Lab would evolve
because it provided the program with the
research bandwidth it needed. While the
majority of her work is focused on dairy
research it also overlaps into other areas
within the department.
After the pandemic, as life returned to
normal, research projects began ramping
back up, including a substantial USDA grant
that was awarded to Vogel's team to research
captive bolt euthanasia (which is led by
Karly Anderson, a co-op PhD student who is
co-advised by Vogel and Ruth Woiwode, PhD,
at the University of Nebraska, another former
graduate student of Grandin's).
HHI CONCEPTION
Then, in January of 2022, Vogel's colleague
at the university told him about a program
announced by Wisconsin Governor Tony
Evers that would provide $5 million as part
of the American Rescue Plan Act to fund
programming for meat talent development.
" I had this idea bouncing around in the
back of my head for years that the industry
needed a training center for humane handling, "
18 MEAT+POULTRY | 03.23 | www.meatpoultry.com
Vogel said. " We didn't have that, and we
needed that. "
He envisioned a university-based program
designated to train workers at meat processing
plants who work in livestock handling, and
coach them up and develop their skills. Vogel
reached out to officials at DATCP who were
responsible for dispersing the funding for
the program and pitched them on the idea of
creating a training center to teach workers
in the industry about the specifics of live
animal handling, proper stunning, determining
insensibility, sticking etc. He said the premise
for the training differed from that offered by
the Professional Animal Auditor Certification
Organization (PAACO), which is intended to
certify animal welfare auditors.
" That's a massive difference, " Vogel said
of the distinction between training for animal
auditors versus live animal handlers in plants,
" because you can't get into the same kind of
hands-on application that we need for the folks
who are working on the front lines. "
When he first pitched the idea to DATCP
officials in February 2022, they quickly
recognized how valuable it would be to the
industry. They shared their support for the idea
with the state meat inspection bureau, where
the consensus was loud and clear.
Vogel remembered the feedback was, " That is
the right person at the right time, and we need to
do this, " and the enthusiasm for moving forward
spread to the secretary of agriculture's office
and beyond. Vogel and his team put together a
formal proposal detailing the specifics of how
the Humane Handling Institute would work,
which was submitted to the state in April 2022.
" Initially we asked for funding just
to get the HHI running, " including salary
support, investments in equipment and tools,
educational material and other basic items.
After signing off on that part of the program,
DATCP officials came back to Vogel and his
team to help identify who would most benefit
from the HHI training that had been proposed.
Knowing there are approximately 120
slaughter facilities across the state of
Wisconsin, Vogel said, " I told them that we
needed to have at least one person out of every
plant trained through this program. Their
response was 'I think we should make it two,' "
which was an eye-popping surprise to those on
Vogel's side of the table.
Joel Crews/Sosland Publishing Co.
http://www.meatpoultry.com
Meat+Poultry - March 2023

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