January 22, 2014 at 5:32 p.m.
Cline passes Master Meat Crafter class
Cline passes Master Meat Crafter class
With that in mind, Trig's recently sent its Smokehouse manager, Jamie Cline, down to Madison to take the Master Meat Crafter program held at UW-Madison.
"The Master Meat Crafter Program allows participants to build on their experiences in meat science and processing through a comprehensive curriculum of a plant research project, workshops and assignments. Topics included food safety, microbiology and meat curing. Each Master Meat Crafter also completed a mentorship component, sharing what they gained with an employee or another individual," according to a press release from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
"This one-of-a-kind program allows graduates to earn the accreditation of a Master Meat Crafter."
Cline, who graduated last Friday, said the course was like any other course in that there were books to read and tests to take, it just so happened that all of the material had to do with making the best possible meat products.
"It's in-depth training - reading, tests, we had to do a plant project, we had to do a mentorship program," Cline said.
"We had six or seven or eight different books that we had to go through. It was broken into categories. We had a fresh meat school, a curing school, a microbiology class, things like that."
That's exactly what Cline was hoping for. He said he enrolled in the course so that he could learn all he could about the world of meat.
"Being new to this - I've been doing sausage-making for seven or eight years - there was more to learn," Cline said. "I wanted the technical side of it and that's what I got to learn."
Cline said he will now be taking what he learned and using it to help Trig's produce even higher quality products.
"We'll be able to improve the quality of our products with the different things learned in the class," Cline said.
Cline didn't have to do it alone. The company that employs him provided valuable assistance.
"We made this investment, which is exactly what it was, both a financial investment and an investment in Jamie when we heard about this class," said Gary Husnick, director of meat and seafood.
"We knew that we had a real good opportunity to get Jamie some training down there."
With the Smokehouse now just over a year old, plans are in place to try to dominate the world of meat. Thanks to Cline's new experience, that dream is closer to becoming a reality.
"Where we are at at our smokehouse, we're a little over one year into our new facility here, and we have some very significant plans to spread our business both locally within the state and, honestly, throughout the nation. We're working on a lot of different projects now, so anything that we could do to get our manager any kind of additional training that's exactly why we did this," Husnick said.
While Cline is the only Master Meat Crafter currently at the Trig's Smokehouse, that could change.
"At this point, the course is now over. I believe the next course starts approximately a year from now, so we will definitely consider taking other employees to the class," Husnick said.
"Jamie was just real high on everything that he learned and the experience he had, and so are we, so anything we can do to further that with any of our other employees, we're certainly going to entertain that."
Marcus Nesemann may be reached at [email protected].
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