Friends and family,
Weather: Mostly cloudy. Temperatures around 54 degrees.
An early morning bus trip with our favorite driver, Robbie, led us to the freezing works in Christchurch. Freezing works is the New Zealand name for a packing plant. This name is fitting due to the "freezing" of the carcasses that takes place in order to export meat across the world in shipping containers. We toured the Alliance Group Stockburn Freezing Works beginning at 8:00 a.m. this morning.
The tour of the facility began with an overview of safety regulations and signing a safety release waiver. The plant manager, Kelvin Ashby, strongly emphasized the safety of employees and the meat produced. The Stockburn freezing works slaughters cattle, deer, and hogs. In addition to animal slaughter they further process value added lamb carcasses. Our group of 12 split into two groups of 6 for the freezing works tour. My group dawned on our fashionable white coat, white pants, hairnet, and white boot covers to begin touring the beef slaughtering process. Immediately I noticed a difference in the speed of processing. Kelvin said approximately 33 head are processed per hour, equating to 240 head per day. Bryttni took me on a tour of Cargill Meat Solutions in Schuyler, Nebraska about a year ago. In contrast, Cargill processes about 4,000 head per day. Workers at the freezing works were mounted on hydraulic lifts that allowed them to make cuts to break down the carcass. Much of the beef produced out of the Stockburn works is exported to the United States to fast food chains such as McDonald's and Burger King. The chilling room had around 50 carcasses on display weighing approximately 300 kilograms. A dark yellow, grass-fed fat cover easily differentiated the New Zealand beef from United States beef.
The second part of the plant tour focused on the venison operations. Thanks to Bryce's Sausage Kitchen in Kinnear, Wyoming, I had a general idea of what to expect in the deer slaughter process. The freezing works harvests 170 head of deer per day. This process is slower than the beef line due to more manual labor during harvest. Most of the venison is shipped to markets in France and Germany. The works was just finishing their high demand holiday season during our visit. Different from any packing plant I know of, the carcasses were not transported with a "wheel" on the rail. When we asked Kelvin about this, he said it was a new system that greatly reduces the need to clean the rail system. The carcass hooks are conveyed through the production area with a hydraulically powered chain. Deer carcasses in the chilling room were very uniform and showed little to no fat cover.
As an Iowa cattlemen, I really question why we import so much beef. Our corn-fed beef is high quality and provides outstanding taste. Is my southwest Iowa beef not consumed IN the United States due to political reasons or consumer knowledge and understanding of our product? With my experience at Cargill Meat Solutions, I know that our beef slaughter process in the U.S. is just as safe, if not more safe, than what we saw today.
Following the freezing works we visited CRT. This is a farm supply store in New Zealand, similar to Tractor Supply Company or Orscheln's in the United States. They had Gallager electric fencers for sale with a power of 60 joules for nearly $6,000. This would definitely pack a punch!
Our next stop was the Antarctic Center near the Christchurch Airport. This is where the United States and several other countries headquarter their Antarctic exploration teams. Our group had the opportunity to experience arctic weather conditions, watch penguin feeding, and discover the history of Antarctic exploration. I felt like it was a preparation for returning to the winter conditions of the Midwest from the summer weather conditions we have come to enjoy here in New Zealand.
A three hour bus trip brought us to our current location of Kaikoura, New Zealand. Tomorrow morning our group heads out on a ship to whale watch. I am excited for this opportunity, but I will need to be careful of sea-sickness on the voyage. I hear the ocean is quite rough!
Sleeping fast,
Matt
Weather: Mostly cloudy. Temperatures around 54 degrees.
An early morning bus trip with our favorite driver, Robbie, led us to the freezing works in Christchurch. Freezing works is the New Zealand name for a packing plant. This name is fitting due to the "freezing" of the carcasses that takes place in order to export meat across the world in shipping containers. We toured the Alliance Group Stockburn Freezing Works beginning at 8:00 a.m. this morning.
The tour of the facility began with an overview of safety regulations and signing a safety release waiver. The plant manager, Kelvin Ashby, strongly emphasized the safety of employees and the meat produced. The Stockburn freezing works slaughters cattle, deer, and hogs. In addition to animal slaughter they further process value added lamb carcasses. Our group of 12 split into two groups of 6 for the freezing works tour. My group dawned on our fashionable white coat, white pants, hairnet, and white boot covers to begin touring the beef slaughtering process. Immediately I noticed a difference in the speed of processing. Kelvin said approximately 33 head are processed per hour, equating to 240 head per day. Bryttni took me on a tour of Cargill Meat Solutions in Schuyler, Nebraska about a year ago. In contrast, Cargill processes about 4,000 head per day. Workers at the freezing works were mounted on hydraulic lifts that allowed them to make cuts to break down the carcass. Much of the beef produced out of the Stockburn works is exported to the United States to fast food chains such as McDonald's and Burger King. The chilling room had around 50 carcasses on display weighing approximately 300 kilograms. A dark yellow, grass-fed fat cover easily differentiated the New Zealand beef from United States beef.
The second part of the plant tour focused on the venison operations. Thanks to Bryce's Sausage Kitchen in Kinnear, Wyoming, I had a general idea of what to expect in the deer slaughter process. The freezing works harvests 170 head of deer per day. This process is slower than the beef line due to more manual labor during harvest. Most of the venison is shipped to markets in France and Germany. The works was just finishing their high demand holiday season during our visit. Different from any packing plant I know of, the carcasses were not transported with a "wheel" on the rail. When we asked Kelvin about this, he said it was a new system that greatly reduces the need to clean the rail system. The carcass hooks are conveyed through the production area with a hydraulically powered chain. Deer carcasses in the chilling room were very uniform and showed little to no fat cover.
As an Iowa cattlemen, I really question why we import so much beef. Our corn-fed beef is high quality and provides outstanding taste. Is my southwest Iowa beef not consumed IN the United States due to political reasons or consumer knowledge and understanding of our product? With my experience at Cargill Meat Solutions, I know that our beef slaughter process in the U.S. is just as safe, if not more safe, than what we saw today.
Following the freezing works we visited CRT. This is a farm supply store in New Zealand, similar to Tractor Supply Company or Orscheln's in the United States. They had Gallager electric fencers for sale with a power of 60 joules for nearly $6,000. This would definitely pack a punch!
Our next stop was the Antarctic Center near the Christchurch Airport. This is where the United States and several other countries headquarter their Antarctic exploration teams. Our group had the opportunity to experience arctic weather conditions, watch penguin feeding, and discover the history of Antarctic exploration. I felt like it was a preparation for returning to the winter conditions of the Midwest from the summer weather conditions we have come to enjoy here in New Zealand.
A three hour bus trip brought us to our current location of Kaikoura, New Zealand. Tomorrow morning our group heads out on a ship to whale watch. I am excited for this opportunity, but I will need to be careful of sea-sickness on the voyage. I hear the ocean is quite rough!
Sleeping fast,
Matt
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