Worker injury rates in the U.S. poultry industry posted a significant decline in the last 29 years and this week’s MeatingPod guest explains how this milestone was achieved through innovation, education and collaboration. Matt Spencer is vice president of human resources and safety programs at USPOULTRY, which monitors trends industrywide. He notes that poultry processors were eager to share new approaches that addressed such issues as musculoskeletal disorders and other potential hazards in the workplace that threaten worker safety. He also addresses how robotics and automation initiatives are improving safety on several levels of poultry processing operations.

Dr. Denise Heard, vice president of Research Programs at the U.S. Poultry & Egg Association, updates recent results from research partially funded by the organization known primarily as USPOULTRY. She also outlines how the process works regarding the research support arms of the association and its USPOULTRY Foundation. Dr. Heard provides a sneak peek into the upcoming 2025 International Production & Processing Expo (IPPE), the annual poultry industry gathering scheduled for Atlanta in late January 2025. USPOULTRY is a major sponsor of the gathering that offers attendees the opportunity to attend more than 80 educational, college student and career program sessions and networking events throughout the three-day trade show.

In this MeatingPod episode, Brad Johnson, CEO of Verde Farms, outlines the challenges and processes to maintain innovations and safety standards for the company’s line of 100% grass-fed and organic beef products. The Mass.-based processor is focused on keeping the lines of communications open with its retail customers in addition to conducting its own research on consumer trends. Verde Farms, he notes, is focused on trying to keep ahead of what shoppers are looking for when it comes to grass-fed and organic meat products.

The way Jeff “Trip” Tripician sees it, he didn’t leave his job as CEO of a conventional meat company to become CEO of the Dutch cultivated meat company Meatable; rather, he went from CEO of one meat company to another. After decades working to institute progressive practices within the U.S. meat industry, Trip is pushing the cultivated meat industry to progress by, essentially, helping them understand that they are meat companies, not food-tech companies. And by hammering home the idea that feeding the world’s population is strategy, not a competition, he aims to create that brass ring of business — synergy. Trip Tripician joined MeatingPod for a wide-ranging and frank discussion of meat, alt-meat, food-tech, the climate, and the crossroads at which they all are standing.

This episode centers on a process that offers assistance to meat processors seeking methods to make sustainability more effective and consistent. Ryan Jones of Indigo Ag works with a variety of consumer product companies by connecting them with supplies of low-carbon grain that is used in animal feed, resulting in reduced rates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in cattle, for example. The company offers a concept that helps entities move closer to those goals from the farm and ranch level. Since reducing GHGs is among several factors that the meat industry cites as a goal to improve sustainability, while Indigo Ag’s efforts may offer a specific role toward helping companies meet new standards with respect to the environment.

In this episode, Dr. Casey Owens and Dongyi Wang of the University of Arkansas discuss new advances in identifying quality defects on the chicken processing line and advances in robotics that can handle repetitive line functions like chicken hanging. Our guests also outline how students at the university are benefitting from internship opportunities that can open doors to other jobs in meat production or to a wider range of meat science research opportunities. The insightful conversation also marks the first time that two former MeatingPod guests appear in the same episode.

In this third episode of a three-part series, Anne-Marie Roerink, principal at 210 Analytics and the author of the annual Power of Meat report for the last 19 years, describes how consumers feel about food safety and innovation in meat products they purchase, prepare and eat. She also will outline how product lines recover after recalls from the consumer perspective and the successful job that processors are doing in developing new types of cuts and offering trending flavors that consumers are looking for when they shop or go out to restaurants for their meals.

U.S. consumers have a lot on their minds besides food, even as they’re standing in front of the supermarket’s display of meat or alt-meat packages. They’re keeping an eye on their kids, putting together a menu in their heads and gasping at the cost of proteins. An alt-meat brand has between 7 and 17 seconds to sell itself to a typical U.S. shopper. Those aren’t great odds, but Chris DuBois has some ideas about how to beat them as the alt-meat industry looks ahead to 2025. The executive vice president of fresh foods for research firm Circana counsels alt-meat brands to focus on frozen, on forms and flavors, and on the findable core group of heavy alt-meat consumers that already exists. Chris joined MeatingPod to elaborate on those ideas, and other trends in the U-S and global alt-meat consumer space.

Dr. Konrad Ahlin, senior robotics researcher at the Georgia Tech Research Institute provides updates on the use of flexible automated systems, robotics, artificial intelligence and virtual reality in food processing plants. In this episode, he outlines how these advances are affecting plant workers and refining specific operations, like movement of product and maintaining yields throughout the processing line. Dr. Ahlin also discusses how collaborations with researchers at other educational institutions are advancing development of new ideas for automated systems and robotics at meat plants. 

Just in time for Thanksgiving 2024, Butterball LLC Chief Operating Officer Neal Walsh updates MeatingPod on the turkey processor’s recent automation upgrades and addresses supply questions in the wake of declining avian influenza outbreaks among birds this year. Butterball’s Head of Innovation Michelle Lieszkovszky also will join the conversation to discuss a revolutionary new Butterball turkey that allows home cooks to skip the thawing step entirely and place the frozen bird directly into the oven while preparing the Thanksgiving holiday meal.