The light, musky fragrance of freshly-ground summer sausage is the first greeting received upon entering the Vandal Meats store on the University of Idaho campus.
George Wood|Argonaut
After sausages are wrapped in artificial or lamb casing, they are hung on smoke sticks to eventually be sent to the smokehouse.
Some UI students associate that aroma with the classroom environment or their job. Customers may associate the waft with pregame tailgate events or potential holiday gifts for that special someone. Whatever the case, the Vandal Meats program has a widespread presence on campus.
The Vandal Meats program is an extension of the Animal and Veterinarian department in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. While faculty members manage each facility within Vandal Meats, the rest of the Vandal Meats operation is comprised of students. The Vandal Brand Meats store is operated by 13 students, and the UI beef unit surrounding the store has five students working on the ranch.
“With whatever we do, we try to involve students with every step of the way,” said Jason Campbell, associate manager of the beef unit at UI.
Ron Richard, who has been manager of the Vandal Meat department for the past 27 years, said livestock are used for a whole spectrum of research projects — including eating trials, feed conversions and carcass characterization.
Students working within the Vandal Brand Meats facility also have the opportunity to work with one of the four U.S. Department of Agriculture-inspected facilities in the region.
Richard said students would receive hands-on experience in working with the animals, evaluating meat quality and managing a processing plant.
James Nasados, the current student assistant manager for Vandal Brand Meats, has been working at the facility for four years. He started working at the facility the summer after his freshman year, pursuing an interest in meats since working with the Future Farmers of America before college.
Nasados said managing Vandal Meats is a great learning experience, and especially useful for gaining contacts within the meat processing industry.
“For me, it’s a great resume builder,” Nasados said. “Our meat processing facility has a really good reputation in the industry, and you make a lot of connections.”
Vandal Brand Meats has processed and harvested cattle, sheep and hogs as a business since 1988. While it has decreased its output since the earlier days of processing meat in bulk, Richard said Vandal Meats still prepares more than 1,200 pounds of sausage a week during the winter holiday season. He also said around 200 holiday hams are sold during the holidays, and 35 different sausage products are available year-round.
Richard said the bulk of Vandal Brand Meat product sales come from retail, though Vandal Meats also supplies Vandal Sausages sold in the Kibbie Dome, and specialty items for catering events. He said working directly with Sodexo and Vandal Dining is done only in special cases, and covering the demands for on-campus cafeterias such as Bob’s Place and Vandals Grill is unrealistic at this point.
“We don’t produce at a volume large enough, plus (Sodexo) has corporate policy to deal with that restricts them,” Richard said.
He has said there are current talks with Campus Dining to work on expanding the Vandal Brand Meats facility.
All revenue accumulated by Vandal Meats goes toward covering overhead, supplies, equipment replacements, paying student employees and helping students pay travel expenses to go to national conferences or competitions to benefit their education. The university budget covers the power bills for Vandal Meats, but Richard said the facility pays it indirectly through administrative fees that come out of sales, making the Vandal Brand Meats facility almost completely self-sustaining.
Richard said Vandal Meats acquires its livestock through the campus herds, donations from local ranchers and purchases at the Latah County Fair. Richard estimates 40 percent of steers are brought from the Nancy Cummings Center in Salmon, Idaho.
“(The Nancy Cummings Center) was endowed and given to the university,” Richard said. “They have a commercial herd of cattle down there managed by John Hall, and they receive much of their livestock by donation through the Steer-A-Year program.”
Wherever the livestock comes from, they all receive equal evaluation from the USDA inspector at the facility, said Shane Riebold, butchers assistant at Vandal Brand Meats.
“There’s a USDA representative that visits the facility once a day,” Riebold said. “If we’re harvesting, (the inspector) is here the entire time, looking over the livestock on a live basis, post-mortem and evaluating the animals entirely for quality.”
Along with the federal policies enforced by the USDA, all animals are also managed under protocol from the university’s Animal Use and Care Committee. The committee is in place due to a national policy requiring university meat processing facilities to have this oversight, Richard said.
“They make sure animals are treated humanely through the entire harvest process,” Richard said.
Even with all this regulation and oversight, students are still able to come up with award-winning creations, such as the nationally award-winning Chipotle Shakin’ Bacon Sausage — one example of the continued innovation of the facility and the students working there.
George Wood can be reached at [email protected]
MORE INFO BOX:
To view a list of products available from Vandal Brand Meats visit http://web.cals.uidaho.edu/vbm/.