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.
As The National Provisioner (NP) celebrated its 100-year anniversary in April 1991, industry was struggling to meet ever-changing consumer demand for more … safer products, further value-added products, higher-quality products plus more convenient products and packaging.
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.
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 1954, I launched my career in the meat industry when I accepted the newly created position of Extension Meat Specialist at Michigan State University.