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Cargill appears on Oprah to clear mystery of beef processing
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Tuesday’s episode of “The Oprah Show” included a tour of Cargill’s Fort Morgan, Colo., plant, revealing the process as beef cattle become meat on the journey from the feedyard to the grocery store.
A crew of five from the show visited Timmerman Feeding Corp.’s lot near Greeley before they toured Cargill’s plant, accompanied by Nicole Johnson-Hoffman, general manager of Cargill’s Fort Morgan beef processing facility. The tour was conducted in reverse order for food safety reasons, according to Cargill, but edited to show how the process takes place from start to finish. Cameras were allowed in every stage of the process, except where the cattle were stunned in the “knock box” due to safety and animal welfare concerns.
Cargill let Oprah’s cameras through the front door to show her audience how beef is produced. Oprah’s producer initially contacted Cargill in September, but toured the feedlot on Jan. 19, visiting the Fort Morgan plant the following day. After taping the tour, Oprah’s producer invited Johnson-Hoffman to appear on the show along with the footage from the tour.
“We wanted to show the consuming public how meat is processed for the majority of consumers,” said Mike Martin, director of communications at Cargill.
Oprah’s viewers are the primary decision makers for their family meals and Martin saw an opportunity to educate a captive audience who may hear about the process, but not know the steps meat goes through before reaching supermarket shelves.
“They want to know and we want to show them,” he said.
The tour gave Cargill a chance to lift the veil of mystery about where meat comes from and how it is produced. With Johnson-Hoffman on the show, Cargill was able to have a spot at the table to share their point of view in an episode that included author Michael Pollan and a segment about Oprah’s staff going vegan for one week.
On the show, Pollan said he eats meat, but called for reform in the industry.
It’s not the first time Oprah’s focused on the meat industry. During an April 1996 show on bovine spongiform encephalopathy, remarks from a panelist and Oprah (who said she was stopped cold from eating another hamburger) resulted in a lawsuit brought by Texas cattlemen who claimed the remarks caused cattle prices to tumble. A jury found Oprah and panelist Howard Lyman were not liable for damages.
Following this week’s taping, Cargill has received positive feedback, Martin said. People were thankful for the opportunity to see how meat is produced and the animal welfare practices in place by Cargill and other meat processors.
“The e-mails, phone calls and social media feedback we’ve seen has been very positive,” Martin said.
Comments (7)
Leave a commentJames L. Jordan
Report AbuseThis is a 5 star article. I, too, watched the Oprah show. I felt the part of from farm to table was tastefully done by Cargill. I did find that the Cargill representative did not get the full time on the panel as did the guy that seemed to have a comment for everything. On facebook there is a movement called Oprah visit my farm and more than 800 people have joined from nearly every state and they are farm people showing how they care for their animals and treat their animals with dignity as was the main focus of the Cargill segment. I question as an Animal Scientist with a BS and MS from Purdue University and a Ph.D. from Ohio State University how the veganist can such a large part of the show and she admitted she had no degree. So Drover's Journal thank you for a great article and coverage of the Oprah show. I have read your newspaper through college in the 1970's and now on line. Thank you.
Charlie Andrews
Report AbuseVery well done-I heard from coast to coast from mostly financial traders saying they were impressed. (I'm known by these traders as the crusader cowboy and if they didn't like it I'd never hear the end of it)The one fact that should be made clear by the meat industry is that labels proclaming protein is N (nitrogen) *6.25 equal a scientific measurment while amino acide are the true protein needed for body functions. Waren Monfort sent me in 1962 to meet a Japanese deligation in LA. Their first words were that the average cousin born and raised in the US was 8" taller than his cousin in Japan. They wanted us to teach them the cattle and meat business. The rest is history. I remain very angry that the true message regarding the real value of beef, pork and poultry isn't told. You can trust that as exports hit the 6.5B people residing outside the US beef will be known as amino acids and at that time we cowboys will have arrived. PS I wonder how many pounds of tofu super bowl players will eat before the game??
Maxine Jones
Report AbuseIs there any way to get the information Mr. Andrews mentioned re. correct nutrient label of protein in beef? It has been a particular interest of mine for some time and it is frustrating that we as cattle producers seem not be be promoting those excellent nutrients more strongly.
Is the same true of the superior fatty acids content of beef fat?
Thanks for any information.
M. J.
Jessie
Report AbuseAnyone know where I can see this episode? I'm really interested in seeing it, espcially if there was such positive feedback about it. This is a great thing for the industry!
Drovers CattleNetwork
Report AbuseJessie, you can view the Cargill tour from the show here - http://www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Inside-a-Slaughterhouse-Video
Brad Bergh
Report AbuseMaybe some of you need to get your hands on the movie Earthlings if you really want to see what happens inside factory farms and slaughterhouses. Even your academy nominated Food Inc (also featuring Michael Pollan) showed how sick beef cattle get from their feedlot diets of corn and protein the Cargill spin doctor was so proud to tell us. Why, if the movie was meant to show us EXACTLY where our meat comes from, would Cargill not allow the filming of the Captive Bolt & Sticking stages? I think this Oprah episode was a bit of a whitewash, endorsed by comments on this site that it made the 'industrial meat industry' look good. I don't care what people eat but no matter how the corporations try to spin it, it is never going to look like anything other than what it is. The exploitation of a resource for the pleasure of a dominant species.