I joined The National Provisioner in 2004, and after a couple weeks of learning the lingo and conducting a few phone interviews, I made my way out to my first-ever visit to a meat plant.

As someone with decades of experience on several trade magazines, including five years with The National Provisioner early in my career, I can attest to my mother’s genuine love of the meat industry.

While the total number of FSIS recalls is down and allergen recalls are down by roughly 50 percent, there are several troubling trends.

When Andy recruited me to relive my tenure as a journalist covering the meat industry for a special issue commemorating The National Provisioner’s 125th anniversary, I knew squeezing an abundance of memories, experiences, joys and sorrows into a few hundred words of copy would be challenging.

One of the many effects of our recent experiences with highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has been the difficulties that the primary breeding industry in the U.S. has had in exporting its products and also moving breeding stock within the United States.

Since serving as editorial director of The National Provisioner and Meat & Deli Retailer, plus editor of the latter publication, in the early to mid-2000s, I, too, became a tiny thread in this massive, ever-growing NP editorial quilt.

In a business where the only constant is change, 125 years as a leading industry publication is a truly remarkable accomplishment.

For birds, a high heat index, and the resulting heat stress, is an issue that affects all of the concerns of animal management.

One of the major problems with managing spare parts inventory is that many people consider it to be a task-oriented function.

The market is truly global in nature. One hiccup in any major crop producing region of the world can result in a significant market shift.