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Meet Your OSU Meat: Open Fridays from 1 to 5:30 p.m. for Pub... http://www.corvallisadvocate.com/2013/0606-meet-your-osu-meat/

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Meet Your OSU Meat: Open Fridays from 1 to5:30 p.m. for Public SalesPosted: June 6th, 2013 ˑ Filled under: Feature ˑ 1 Comment

Know thy meat processor. Sounds like a good, solid commandment that more carnivores shouldfollow. For those who tend to enjoy the juicy, grilled burger but have an aversion to theslaughterhouse, a visit to the Oregon State University Clark Meat Center might be in order.

The jolly meat center student workers; photo by


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Bridget Egan.

Clark is not fancy. It sits in a gravel lot surrounded by more gravel. The sign outside the building issharpie on wood. Inside it is basic and hasn’t seen a remodel in years, or ever. But it is small and quietand clean. So clean that it is a little surprising to find out that heifer, steer, pigs and sheep areslaughtered and processed here.

The all-student staff is full of grins, quick jokes and sincerity about their work, even when it involvespacking countless pounds of ground beef into little red wrappers.

Clark gets most of its animals through the Steer-a-Year program, where steer and occasionally heifersare donated to students. The animals live in a feedlot tended by students who have one year to getthem to the ideal weight for processing. Students learn about antibiotics, tillage, feed and all otherthings cattle. They typically put about 30 steers through the program in one year. After processing, thedonor buys back the meat with some sold to the general public. All proceeds support the program.

Throughout the process, students keep prodigious track of their cattle and learn many aspects of theindustry. The donors become connected to the students and get some feedback that may help theiroperation.

“They [donors] want to help out OSU, but they also want to get some feedback,” says manager NateParker. “And we’re open to any praise or any criticism we get. We want to improve.”

Parker, a graduate student in agriculture and rangeland sciences, is a guy who really enjoys talkingabout anything and everything meat: safety standards, marbling, regulations and most of all,cleanliness.

Senior Scott Delcurto and junior Nate Duyn;photo by Bridget Egan.

He started at the center in 2008 as an undergrad doing cleanup. This is not an easy job in a facility thatslaughters 1200-pound animals. The experience taught him the importance of safety and cleanliness.In one way, it is a typical lab job for a grad or undergrad. But these students have to make sure thingslike Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (Mad Cow), transmissible spongiform encephalopathies


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(scrapie) and E.coli don’t make it into the meat. They have to handle and slaughter large animalsefficiently and humanely.

Parker is a passionate spokesman for the educational experience.

Most people are not “fully aware of the beef industry, slaughter and meat. They need to know. It’simportant to let them know and make them informed consumers,” Parker said.

Elizabeth Wong is one worker who has done just about everything at the meat center. She is a senioranimal science major who will be interviewing for jobs at meat processing plants in the comingmonth. About working in the industry she said, “I like the idea of providing a good, high qualityproduct to customers.”

Nate walked me through the slaughter process, from chute to carcass room. He went through thetesting and regulations they submit to with encyclopedic precision. I was next to the pen where a steerrolls after being stunned by a captive bolt blow to the skull before being hoisted to the exsanguinationarea where it would lose its head, bleed out and finally die. As he was explaining how the process iscarried out, Nate looked across the room and stopped mid-sentence, “Oh, there’s a cobweb there. Thatshouldn’t be there.”

I could not see it even when I walked over to the area. But I was glad he could.

The Clark Meat Center has many loyal customers and typically sell all kinds of meat products eachFriday from 1 to 5:30 p.m. Parker and another graduate student have been working on a project tointroduce charcuterie to the Beaver family. In the future, there may be a signature salami or prosciuttoto go with your Beaver Gold cheese.

Slaughter is a nasty business. But the students at Clark work in a learning environment and take theutmost care with their job. Know your butcher; they should know their meat.

The Clark Meat Center is located on OSU’s campus. For directions orinformation, contact 541-737-1927 or [email protected].

By Bridget Egan

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One Comment


4 of 5 5/3/14, 3:02 PM

Nate Parker wrote:June 6, 2013 at 12:41 pm

And just to be clear, the cobweb was eradicated post interview.

Thanks for giving us a chance to showcase what we do, and what we’re about Bridget; Wereally enjoyed the article!

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