So You Want to Build a Meat Processing Plant?
Building the Workforce for the Buffalo Economy
By Chris White Eagle, CEO, Wambli Ska Society
So You Want to Build a Meat Processing Plant? is an ongoing series by Chris White Eagle about the people, knowledge, and systems required to build a durable buffalo economy.
Q: What should workforce development look like inside a processing operation?
A: It should never end with, “Here is your station.”
Teach people the station, but also teach them what happens before and after it.
Teach them why.
Let people understand the whole animal and the whole business.
An employee working in packaging should have opportunities to learn processing. Someone learning processing should understand food safety. Someone interested in management should learn inventory, scheduling, purchasing and production.
People interested in entrepreneurship should learn pricing, margins, customer relationships and product development.
And people interested in leadership need opportunities to lead.
A workforce pathway becomes durable when experienced workers become mentors and the next person can see where the work can lead.
That's why I believe so strongly in mentorship.
After more than twenty years of butchering, the most valuable thing I have isn't simply how quickly I can make a cut.
It is what I can teach somebody else.
Knowledge becomes more valuable when it moves.
Chris White Eagle
CEO, Wambli Ska Society
Sacred Storm Buffalo
SERIES: So You Want to Build a Meat Processing Plant? · Wambli Ska · Sacred Storm Buffalo