One of the highlights of the bus trip was taking a tour of Tyson's Finney County meat processing facility (where live cattle are turned into boxed beef), located near Holcomb, KS. For food safety and security reasons, it isn't easy to get into a plant like this. I'm not sure if they did background checks, but we had to provide our driver's license number and full name to gain access. We also had to sign an affidavit that we had not traveled to a foreign country in the past 30 days. We were not allowed to take cameras or cell phones with us into the facility. With all the people out there wanting to do a hit job "documentary" on what goes on in these plants, I can't blame them. But I have some problems with their approach as well…more on that later. As a result, I don't have any pictures to share with you in this post. Continue reading “Bus tour part 4: Tyson meat packing facility (and more)”
Bus Tour Part 2: Culinary Kitchen and CattleFax
While steaks and burgers are what usually come to mind when we think of beef, there are a lot of other cuts that come from a cow. The Culinary Kitchen is part of the beef industry's effort to develop new ways for customers to enjoy beef. Continue reading “Bus Tour Part 2: Culinary Kitchen and CattleFax”
Bus Tour part 1: Temple Grandin
This week, Naomi and I took a five day bus tour as a part of Beef SD, a program for young cattle producers to learn more about all segments of the cattle industry. Industry seems like a cold term, but the process of turning grass into the beef you might serve for supper tonight is such an amazing process, it takes an amazing amount of management and coordination to complete. This trip included visiting with world-renown livestock handling expert Temple Grandin, enjoying a meal at a white tablecloth restaurant, and tours of several large feedlots, a popular seedstock producer, and a beef packing plant. It is all too much to explain in just one post, so for today I'll just tell you about meeting Temple Grandin. Continue reading “Bus Tour part 1: Temple Grandin”
