In conjunction with the coverage of The National Provisioner’s 125th Anniversary, we chose to honor 25 icons who made their mark on industry since 1991. It’s one thing to select all-time icons of industry, but we decided to limit our list to individuals who shaped the industry in the past 25 years only.

Icons were nominated by industry peers and final selections were determined by the editorial staff of The National Provisioner. To be sure, a list of industry icons will spark debate — why was X not on the list? How did you choose Y to be on this list? In an industry as far-reaching and legendary as the meat and poultry industry, there are likely to be differences of opinion.

We believe we have chosen an excellent list — who would be on yours? Let the debate begin:

List Overview:

Allen  |  Brenneman  |  Carpenter  |  Cator  |  Cross  |  Ettinger  |  Garrett  |  Grandin  |  Hodges  |  Koohmaraie  |  Krut  |  Link  |  Luter III  |  Marsden  |  Mucklow  |  Niman  |  Perdue  |  Roth  |  Savell  |  Schledwitz  |  Seng  |  Smith, D.  |  Smith, G.  |  Theno  |  Wheeler

DELL ALLEN

Kansas State University
Cargill Meat Solutions
Member of the Meat Industry Hall of Fame

Allen has been a highly recognized pioneer of food safety his entire career. However, he was more than a meat scientist who advanced food safety — he also had a significant influence in the realm of customer satisfaction that one nomination called “invaluable to the success of modern meat products” around the world. Throughout his career, Allen worked to implement many technologies that improved product safety and quality, and he reached out to consumer advocacy groups and elected officials to help showcase the livestock industry’s ongoing efforts to provide wholesome, high-quality products from farm-to-fork.

ROD BRENNEMAN

Seaboard Foods/ Seaboard Corp.
Butterball LLC

Brenneman’s work to build and revive two very different processors earns him icon status. From 2010-2014, Brenneman served as president and CEO of Butterball LLC. In that short time, Brenneman revitalized the iconic turkey brand by putting it on a tightly focused growth trajectory (that continues today) and grew the company from $1.2 billion in sales to $1.7 billion. Additionally, Brenneman oversaw enhanced company-wide communication around and dedication to product quality, worker and food safety, and animal welfare, as well as vigorous capital investment in modernization and innovation at numerous facilities. Prior to his tenure at Butterball, Brenneman spent more than 22 years with Seaboard Corp., including serving as president & CEO of Seaboard Foods from 2001-2011, during which time he helped build it into a $1.7 billion dollar pork-processing company.

BARRY CARPENTER

USDA-AMS
NMA/NAMA
North American Meat Institute
Member of the Meat Industry Hall of Fame

By the time 1991 rolled around, Carpenter was well into a long career at USDA, when he was named deputy administrator for the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, where he administered the Livestock and Seed Program. Carpenter created the United States’ beef export verification program that was critical to re-establishing American beef exports following the first U.S. case of BSE in 2003. He also oversaw development and authorized video technology for beef yield and quality grading. Since his retirement from USDA, Carpenter has been CEO of the National Meat Association (NMA), and was integral in the two big association mergers in the last decade: NMA with the North American Meat Processors Association (NAMP) to form the North American Meat Association (NAMA), and then NAMA with the American Meat Institute (AMI) to form the North American Meat Institute, for which he is president and CEO currently.

BRENT CATOR

Cardinal Meat Specialists

Cator has worked for Cardinal Meat Specialists for more than 30 years, and today is the president/owner of the company his father founded in 1966. Cator led the Cardinal team that developed the company’s Kettle Cooked process, which eliminates warmed-over flavor profiles and provides a long shelf life and a tender product by using the meat’s own juices, rather than pumping it with water. Under Cator’s watch, Cardinal Meat Specialists has built upon its reputation as an innovator in food safety, processing and product development. Four years ago, Cardinal teamed up with Sysco and Certified Angus Beef to develop its Natural Texture Forming patty-making progress, which offered an innovative, faster-cooking burger to the marketplace. Cardinal was the first Canadian beef processor to receive the HACCP designation in 1998, and the first to utilize DNA lab technology for microbiology (2003). Cator is a past president of the North American Meat Processors Association (NAMP) and has remained visible and involved in its descendant associations (post-mergers).

H. RUSSELL CROSS

Texas A&M University
USDA-FSIS
International HACCP Alliance
Member of the Meat Industry Hall of Fame

Cross carries with him more than 35 years of management experience, holding numerous positions in government, academia and the private sector. In the academic sector, Cross was head of the Department of Animal Science at Texas A&M University and the meat and muscle biology section and holder of the E.M. “Manny” Rosenthal Chair in Meat Science. Additionally, in 1994, Cross was the founding director of Texas A&M’s Institute of Food Science and Engineering. His service in government included the role of administrator of USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Cross also founded and served as the executive director of the International HACCP Alliance, which represents 24 food associations, 40 universities and the governments of 13 countries.

JEFF ETTINGER

Hormel Foods

In his eleven years as CEO, Ettinger has grown and diversified Hormel Foods by expanding the company’s product portfolio through innovation and strategic acquisitions. Recent acquisitions include Justin’s, Applegate, CytoSport (maker of Muscle Milk products) and the Skippy peanut butter brand. The company has achieved excellent year-over-year performance, announcing its 50th consecutive increase to its annual dividend in 2015 and its seventh consecutive year of record earnings. Under Ettinger’s leadership, Hormel Foods continues to innovate and invigorate its traditional product lines and create new product lines to meet consumer convenience demands. Ettinger spearheaded the development of SPAMMY^®, a shelf-stable poultry-based product that is fortified with vitamins and minerals, to help prevent childhood malnutrition in Guatemala, and also championed Hormel Vital Cuisine, a brand new product line that meets the specific nutritional needs of patients undergoing treatment for cancer.

TEMPLE GRANDIN

Colorado State University
Member of the Meat Industry Hall of Fame

One nomination stated it plainly: “No one has had a bigger impact on the industry in the past 50 years” than Grandin has. While Grandin began to revolutionize animal handling and welfare in the meat industry prior to the 1990s, her influence and iconic status has skyrocketed in the past 25 years. Furthermore, Grandin has mentored a generation of meat science students who have entered the workforce with her philosophies and expertise in their toolboxes. While Grandin revolutionized animal handling design earlier in her career, today she can lay claim to having revolutionized the thinking of a generation of animal-handling experts who will challenge the industry as she continues to do as well.

MOHAMMAD KOOHMARAIE

U.S. Meat Animal Research Center, USDA-ARS
IEH Laboratories and Consulting Group
Member of the Meat Industry Hall of Fame

Throughout his career, Koohmaraie has focused his research efforts on the biological mechanisms regulating meat tenderness. Since the early 1990s, Koohmaraie has been heavily involved in leading and conducting research projects to help the meat industry reduce/eliminate E. coli O157:H7 from the red meat supply. He works closely with the members of the meat industry to design projects to address food-safety problems relevant to the industry. The focal point of these projects has been the development of methodology to assess the prevalence as well as the sources of key foodborne pathogens and intervention strategies to reduce/eliminate these pathogens from the red meat supply. Last year, Koohmaraie worked with veal processor Marcho Farms to implement and refine an innovative, comprehensive carcass-testing program designed to replace the processor’s trim-testing program — a proactive tactic in the war against E. coli.

JOHN "JACK" LINK

Link Snacks Inc.

Jack Link is the pioneer of the meat snacks category, and the meteoric rise of his namesake Jack Link’s Protein Snacks from a local family business to a $1.3 billion protein snacks business over the last 30 years proves it. Inspired by the idea to begin making jerky using his family’s old-world recipes, Jack began selling jerky to small stores in Wisconsin and quickly sold products into convenience stores before being recognized by Walmart. Today, Jack Link’s Protein Snacks is the global leader in the meat snacks category, offering more than 100 premium protein snack products at retail outlets in more than 40 countries.

JAMES MARSDEN

Smithfield Foods
Member of the Meat Industry Hall of Fame

Marsden’s passion for furthering the cause of food safety has led him to be the “go-to guy” for food-safety insight and expertise. He continues to advance food safety, building upon years of research, publication and presentation of work on biosecurity, food safety, food quality, public health and quality management. His research on controlling E. coli in fresh ground beef and processed beef products has led to the development of several successful interventions, and he also performed research that led to pasteurization technologies for pathogen control on carcasses and subprimal cuts. Today, Marsden continues to lead the industry forward on food safety and was hired by Chipotle Mexican Grill to right its food-safety ship after its fight against foodborne illnesses traced back to its food.

BILL NIMAN

Niman Ranch Inc.
BN Ranch

Niman is a cattle and turkey rancher in Northern California, who has been providing naturally raised beef, pork, and lamb to fine restaurants and retailers for more than thirty years. He is the founding partner of BN Ranch, and founder of the natural meat company Niman Ranch, Inc. Niman animals were always raised using traditional husbandry methods, and eschewing hormones, antibiotics and feed additives. Originally under the name Niman Shell and then Niman Ranch, Niman’s superior-tasting meat products were marketed to San Francisco Bay Area restaurants as their reputation quickly spread. Over the years, Niman Ranch grew to a network of over 700 farms and ranches, which all adhere to a strict code of animal husbandry and land stewardship. Niman left the company in August 2007 and soon founded his current operation, BN Ranch.

ELDON ROTH

Beef Products Inc. (BPI)
Member of the Meat Industry Hall of Fame

Simply put, Roth is truly creative. Through hard work and effort, he and the BPI team developed the technology to increase valuable lean beef from what would normally have been underutilized trim. Yes, lean finely textured beef came under (inaccurate) fire several years ago, but Roth’s leadership and vision have allowed the company to rebound from a situation that could have been even more disastrous. Roth’s inventiveness hasn’t been limited to lean finely textured beef, either. He and his team have designed several innovative pieces of equipment to help with refrigeration, freezing and food safety of the products that are produced in BPI’s one-of-a-kind processing facility. He is a renowned food-safety innovator and has spoken on food-safety best practices as well.

KARL SCHLEDWITZ

Monogram Foods

Although Schledwitz doesn’t have the same meat-science background or long-storied history in the meat business as some of the icons on this list, the impact of his success in the meat industry since 2004 cannot be ignored. That year, he founded Monogram Foods with Wes Jackson, and he has served as chairman and CEO since. Monogram Foods began operation with nine employees and today has grown to more than 2,600 employees and a projected 2016 revenue of $650 million, with plans to exceed $1 billion run rate in 2018. Schledwitz and his team employ a flexible business approach, capitalizing on co-manufacturing and licensing deals to manufacture meat snacks, processed-meat products and appetizers in facilities that they’ve acquired and renovated to meet their needs. Monogram Foods has been named to numerous “fastest growing companies” lists, and in 2014, Ernst & Young recognized Schledwitz as an Entrepreneur of the Year.

DONNIE SMITH

Tyson Foods

As CEO of Tyson Foods, Donnie Smith’s enthusiasm is contagious, and his passion is the hallmark of his tenure at the helm. Smith guides Tyson Foods to be a company with a conscience, focused on feeding the world great, affordable food, while also making a positive difference in people’s lives. Since 1991, Smith has “been there, done that” in terms of responsibilities at Tyson Foods, having directed everything from commodity purchasing to engineering, food safety and quality assurance to the company’s consumer products division. During Smith’s tenure as CEO, which began in 2009, Tyson’s stock has increased in value more than five times, and the company successfully navigated its way out of the great recession because of initiatives to eliminate inefficiencies and re-dedicate itself to its customers. Additionally, in 2014, Tyson was able to outbid its rivals to acquire Hillshire Brands Co. for $7.7 billion — the meat industry’s biggest deal ever.

DAVE THENO

Jack in the Box Inc.
Gray Dog Partners Inc.
Member of the Meat Industry Hall of Fame

Theno’s leadership in response to the massive Jack in the Box E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in 1993, and his work to advance collaboration between the scientific community and the meat industry to solve food-safety issues left an indelible mark on today’s food-safety landscape. Theno was hired by Jack in the Box to be its vice president of quality assurance and product safety at the request of top management in March 1993, after the restaurant chain’s burgers were blamed for a massive foodborne illness outbreak in the Pacific Northwest. Theno developed a comprehensive HACCP plan for the chain, as well as a finished product testing protocol that did not sit well with meat processors initially but he called “essential to ensuring product safety” in his Meat Industry Hall of Fame bio in 2012.

Thank you

The editors of The National Provisioner would like to thank all those who nominated individuals and provided information and photographs for this “25 Years, 25 Icons” report. We would especially like to thank the Meat Industry Hall of Fame, the American Meat Science Association and the North American Meat Institute for their assistance with photography and information on some of their members who were honored in this report.