Hiding somewhere outside Charlotte in Concord, North Carolina is the Cabarrus Arena and Events center. It is a surprisingly large facility but nearly impossible to find without GPS. Last weekend it hosted a wedding, a gun show and the Carolina Meat Conference. I’ll give you one guess as to what I was doing there!
Uli and I eventually found our way to the Arena early Friday afternoon, arriving just in time to attend a lecture by Keith Payne from USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service and Don Delozier, Director of NCDA’s Meat and Poultry Inspection Division. Officially listed in the program as “Policy and Regulatory Issues in Meat Processing” which sounded very helpful, but my inner cynic was delighted to find that the discussion barely touched on this topic. Mr. Payne set the tone for the lecture by cheerfully stating that catfish is now classified as meat and not seafood. Funnily enough Uli and I were the only ones laughing at this! Later we discovered that the Catfish Lobby, in an attempt to protect themselves from dubious imports masquerading as catfish, pushed for the reclassification so USDA instead of FDA would regulate their industry. Mr. Payne’s other source of pride was Food Defense. After 9/11 the Federal Government made funds available to protect against terrorism and to get the money USDA had to come up with something (I’m not exaggerating; he said that almost word for word!). The importance of Food Defense Plans for everyone under HACCP inspection accounted for the majority of Mr. Payne’s speech. He had a particularly bland slideshow showing the number of plants of various sizes that have plans and how those numbers have grown. Our meat inspector bullied me into writing our Food Defense plan months ago and I can safely say no one is any safer because of it. It could be re-titled “Common Sense” because what it really says is that we will keep doors locked and not have strangers rambling through the butchery. Bravo USDA, money well earned. However, the best part about Mr. Payne was that if he wasn’t talking about catfish or Food Defense Plans he couldn’t answer anyone’s question! It was “Here’s my card. Let me get back to you on that,” to every single question. This man knew he was coming to the conference to lecture on Policy and Regulatory Issues but he didn’t know a thing about them. It was definitely an enlightening lecture for me but I doubt it was what he intended!
Don Delozier was equally amusing and frustrating in his lecture. Currently in North Carolina there are two types of inspection, a state inspection that allows you to wholesale anywhere in North Carolina and the TA inspection which is a federal inspection program (Food Safety Inspection Service) that allows you to sell across state lines and is performed by state employees. We are a TA Facility and have not enjoyed the experience. Now the State, in an attempt to balance the budget and reign in spending, is seriously considering cutting the TA program and letting FSIS send their own inspectors. Naturally the thought of a shrinking department, and the resulting loss of prestige, horrifies Don Delozier and he spent the first ten minutes of his allotted time reassuring us that he had faith that the State would not allow this catastrophe to occur. Everyone was encouraged to contact their legislators and urge them to support the TA program otherwise small farms would be forced to close. I still haven’t figured out how the two are connected, but in politics I don’t suppose that matters. It turned into comedy hour when Mr. Delozier started to describe the different programs and ended every sentence with “Exactly the same.” Really, Mr. Delozier? Why should the State pay for two programs that are “exactly the same” and don’t help the small farmers?
The real reason why Uli and I drove across North Carolina to attend this conference was that Uli was speaking on a panel about collaborating with other facilities to manage the rapid growth of the industry. I just went along as a dutiful daughter to help with the driving and pour beer at the Friday night social. The panel was composed of pairs of farmers and processors (Sorry for using that word Dad!) who worked together in North and South Carolina. Uli teamed with Richard Huettman from Acre Station Meat Farm to discuss how Acre Station slaughters and does the raw primal cuts for farmers and then the Weeping Radish steps in to create cooked and smoked products that use the whole animal. Bias aside, it was very interesting to hear how Uli and Richard work together to make sure the farmer gets the most value from their animals. Richard was surprised to discover that he was something of a celebrity at the conference; his was the only slaughterhouse in the state that no one complained about! It was during the question and answer session though that our Butchery really began to shine. Someone asked about education and how processors found and trained employees. On the job training was the general consensus from most processors, but one of them stunned Uli and I when he said, “If they can use a knife we’ll put them to work.” Our butcher Frank spent five years training to break down an animal and de-bone it without wasting meat or damaging primals and they let anyone who can hold a knife slash through expensive high quality meats?!
We had to miss the Saturday afternoon and Sunday sessions at the conference, but a glance at the schedule suggested more of the same: politicians desperately trying to justify their jobs and bureaucrats displaying their ignorance of the real world. The sad thing is that we spoke to several farmers who were discussing real innovation and progressive techniques, but as long as the politicians are hogging center stage the farmers won’t be heard. A conference for the small meat farmers of North Carolina was a good starting point, but it only served to show me how far the industry has to go to become truly sustainable.
Ok, so technically the Weeping Radish opened on July 4th 1986 but we've decided to start the party early! In honor of our 25th Anniversary we've brought out a new beer: IPA 25. This India Pale Ale is brewed with a unique hop infusion process and uses hops grown in North Carolina. We have the first beer in North Carolina to use the "Goodness Grows in North Carolina" agricultural seal! 