With plenty of awards to hand out and record sales to boast about, Certified Angus Beef's annual conference was filled with good news and big opportunities for the brand and its member companies to grow even more in the coming year.

Nationally, deposits are growing at a much faster rate than new loans. This means banks have more cash than they can lend, and commercial loans are the fastest-growing category in banking.

The recipient and new president of the country’s largest meat industry association is Louie Muench, president of Louie’s Finer Meats.

When we reach a major milestone or achieve a significant accomplishment, the instinct is to press onward to the next goal. We should always take a step back and reflect on major successes and savor that moment before we move on to the next big thing.

Having been through dozens of meat and poultry processing plants during the 12+ years I’ve been writing about this industry, there is one thing I have never seen: an identical workforce.

When a workplace injury occurs, a company will look at the incident from every possible angle, determining what exactly went wrong and how to prevent it from happening again. In the case of Brett Hanvey, he took it upon himself to design a better solution after suffering an injury of his own.

The American Cured Meat Championships featured more than 650 entries this year, from some of the most renowned small meat processors in the country.

Made to exacting specifications in the Southwest of France (and only in the Southwest of France), the Bayonne ham is such a regional specialty that it is protected under the European “Protected Geographical Indication” or PGI, meaning that there are strict regulations in place.

Listening is a skill that has to be mastered. It’s not the same thing as hearing. It’s hearing, comprehending, and responding to what was being said in the appropriate manner.

The growth of the meat snack category has demonstrated that consumers are driven to meat in many hand-held forms. Expresco Foods, a Montreal, Quebec processor with a particular expertise in grilled meats, is banking that consumers will want to snack with skewers as well.