White River Valley Herald: Local Beef From Farm to Cafeteria – VTSU Launches Meat Lab, Sustainable Beef Partnership

In the works at VTSU Randolph is a project that hopes to bring sustainable, local beef to campuses across the state. The school is partnering with the Northeast Grass-Fed Beef Initiative (NGBI), as well as Sodexo, to establish a local supply chain of beef that can supply food to its campus dining halls.

NGBI is a non-profit organization that works with farmers to achieve sustainability and ecosystem health on their farms. A big goal, shared Lea Camille Smith, spokesperson for the organization, is to influence a shift to 100% grass-fed cattle and keeping beef production for the Northeast in the Northeast.

A huge piece of the puzzle is VTSU’s Center for Agriculture and Food Entrepreneurship (CAFE) and the college’s new state-of-the-art meat lab. The space is not only a functional butchery, but a teaching facility. The lab opened in May, and has so far been used mainly for testing, but will welcome its first students this weekend for a two-day introductory course in butchering beef.

Dr. DeMetris Reed Jr., the meat facilities director, is excited about the partnership.

“What we’re doing is working with local producers to purchase their grass-fed cattle, and then they’ll be slaughtered at a local butcher, and then we’ll process the carcasses here,” he said. “We’ll cut the cuts that the campus needs, whether you’re [in] Johnson, Williston, Randolph, or Castleton, and those will be sold to Sodexo.”

Reed proudly showed off the equipment in the lab, including a grinder/mixer, a large smoke “this weekend we’ll do jerky”a walk-in freezer, a band saw, and multiple butchering tables.