Program for meat processors planned at MCC

The Montana Meat Processors Association and Miles Community College in Miles City are working together to create the state’s first meat processing degree to address the demand in the meat processing industry’s diminishing workforce, the association announced during its annual meeting in Havre.

“We want the people that put on boots and a hard hat and can swing a knife all day,” MMPA President Jeremy Plummer said. “We’re wanting that skillset and there is really nothing like that now in the area, not in the northwestern part of the country.”

He said the country has a high demand for trained employees in the meat processing industry, but few who have the certifications needed.

In the industry, if an employee is not certified, then the plant will have to make an investment to put the employee through the journeyman meat-cutter program, he said. The program takes three years to complete and requires hours of on-the-job training, six to eight college courses and is overseen by the Montana Apprenticeship Program.

The plant owners are also responsible to be the instructors of the individual programs and checked on by the curriculum developer from the apprenticeship program, he said. After three years, the employee is awarded their journeyman’s card.

“Someone walks into my plant with a journeyman’s card, it makes them go to the top of the pile for hiring for sure, and there is not a lot of them,” he said.

Hopefully with the new program, and working together with Miles Community College, they will be able to make a program that works, he said, and have the certificate can go toward the requirements by the apprenticeship program.

“We will actually be picking up those students that have some skin in the game,” he said.

Miles Community College Agricultural Program Director Kimberly Gibbs said that she began the process two years ago after the processor’s association approached them and requested they create a program to address the dwindling workforce in the meat processing industry. Since then they have been working on creating a one-year program to get students started on achieving their journeyman’s cards.

“This is the only class of its kind in the state,” she said.

Plummer said that the program is almost ready to go, the only thing they are waiting on is the funding. Miles Community College, partnered with the MMPA, applied April 16 for a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for about $300,000.

Gibbs said the college is hoping to be awarded the grant by the end of this summer. After the college is awarded the grant, it will be hiring a coordinator for the program in the fall and hopefully have classes available for the spring 2020 semester.

“I think it’s going to fill an industry need as well as provide a trade for students to learn here at MCC that they can take almost anywhere in the United States and be able to use it,” she said.

Plummer said that the class will be a large help in getting students started in the process of obtaining their journeyman’s card and will make the students who graduate from the program more employable.

“They realize the need,” he said. “… As far as we can see it would be a 100 percent hire rate in Montana.”

He added that students who graduate from the program will be in high demand not only in Montana, but worldwide. The diminishing workforce in the industry is a problem worldwide and qualified meat processors are highly sought-after.

Plummer said that the state has other programs in meat science labs, but most students who study in these labs end up working for the state research programs instead of working for a plant.

Gibbs said that by partnering with the processors association the students in the new program will be able to get hand-on instruction, with the association designating some of their its to be used as a meat lab and do on-the-job training with students. The hours the students put into the labs will hopefully go toward their journeyman’s card,

In the future, depending on how the program is going, she said, she wants to partner with the journeyman program to be able to have students be able to achieve the full journeyman’s card while attending classes.

“It’s just something the industry needs more people out there and we thought we could maybe help them fill this niche by offering a meat processing degree at MCC,” she said.

More people are becoming more vigilant of their food, she said, and more people are wanting to raise their own cattle, process their own meats, the whole farm-to-table concept.

“I think that we are going to just see more and more demand for people going into meat processing,” she said.

Once they are able to secure funding, she said, she expects the class size for the first year to be between 10 to 15 students.

Plummer said he appreciates what Miles City Community College is doing.

“They have invested interest in it now,” he said. “… It’s a step in the right direction. It’s not perfect, but we are hoping that the demand for the program grows. The outcomes are getting better therefore the funding will get better, that’s our hopes as of now.”

MMPA tours NARC, talks cultured meats, nutrition and more

Thursday, the first day the Montana Meat Processors Association annual meeting, included a tour of and presentations at the Northern Agricultural Research Center.

“They very much delivered the information that we were looking for,” Plummer said. “Personally, I enjoyed the parts on grading and then also I didn’t know about the implants and how they affect carcass.”

NARC Superintendent Darrin Boss lead the members of the association around the facility, showing them what NARC does, how it operates and the benefits of the research lab.

Montana State University Meat Lab Manager and Associate Professor Jane Ann Boles also gave a presentation to MMPA with information about what is changing in the meat market as well as carcass performance. She also spoke about cultured meat and current developments and pitfalls of it.

MSU Extension Beef Cattle Specialist Department of Animal and Range Sciences Assistant Professor Megan Van Emon gave a presentation about managing animals, nutrition, breeding and implants. She also provided members of the association with the science behind specific vaccines as well as the effect of implants on cattle.

Look for more on the tour, cultured meat and Van Emon’s presentation in the June Farm and Ranch Special Section.