Plenty of U of M students serve as research assistants on real-life science projects. But the students working under Jordan McCallum (B.S. ’16, M.S. ’18) enjoy a unique opportunity: When they finish their lab experiments, they can eat them for lunch.

McCallum is supervisor of the Andrew Boss Laboratory of Meat Science. (Everyone just calls it the “Meat Lab.”) There, she oversees a team of a dozen workers, most of them students, who play a vital role in the University’s vast agricultural research network: They inspect, weigh, measure, and butcher farm animals raised by researchers.

After that, they turn them into tasty treats and sell them right out of the lab to in-the-know students and faculty.

“We do everything from the live animal through retail,” explains McCallum. “That includes harvesting live animals and learning how to judge them, how to grade a carcass, measure the rib eye, measure the back fat. Then we do fresh meat cutting and further processing into sausages, bacons, hams, things like that. It’s kind of a full circle.”

Research and education

The animals—cows, pigs, lambs, chickens, turkey, elk, the occasional buffalo—come primarily from one of the U of M’s dozen agriculture research stations, where the focus is animal nutrition. For example, if a cattle farmer uses a particular cover crop to build soil health, how will it impact cow health? The answer lies in comparing two animals raised on different feeds.

“We’re often looking for differences. And you want to see no differences—then you’re getting the same quality of product,” McCallum says. “The data we’re collecting on those animals is carcass measurement data.” The tools of the trade are simple: scales to weigh animals before and after slaughter, a probe to test the depth of back fat, and a graduated transparent grid to calculate muscle mass.

Other critters come to the lab by way of the classroom: for instance, U of M’s popular animal judging classes. These students learn a kind of X-ray vision; by studying the live animal, they can see through fur and skin to fat and meat.

“They learn how to judge them and determine what that animal is going to look like as a carcass—what is the ribeye size going to be? What’s the marbling going to be like?” McCallum explains. Then, animal and student alike head to the meat lab for the big reveal: By examining the carcass, students gauge their skills.

Goldy's Smokehouse

For students who work in the Meat Lab, measuring, grading, and butchering is only the start of their learning. Their next assignment is to prepare a wide variety of processed meats for sale in “Goldy’s Smokehouse,” the retail store in the Meat Lab’s basement. Sausages of every type and flavor, cured and smoked meats, snack-sticks and jerkies, and heat-and-eat meals like meatloaf or BBQ meatballs. Traditional favorites like Canadian bacon and cheddar brats share shelf space with inventive newcomers like raspberry-chipotle bacon and wild rice brats.

“A lot of our recipes are old recipes that we’ve used for quite a long time,” says McCallum. But the team is also expanding into new territory; recently, she challenged her staff to work in teams to invent new brat flavors. That resulted in recipes for street corn brats, honey sriracha brats, pickle jack brats, and BBQ bacon cheeseburger brats. The latter two were voted favorites when McCallum invited department colleagues to a sampling; now they’re for sale at Goldy’s Smokehouse.

Even with all the value-added products on the store shelves, there are plenty of animal parts that don’t end up in a bratwurst. Some of these go back out into university departments for other research projects across campus.

“It’s anything you can think of,” McCallum says. “I’ve had researchers needing teeth, hearts, plucks (which are the lungs; heart; and trachea). McCallum and students practice intubation on plucks from the lab. “I get to learn about all different uses that help advance medical fields and knowledge. We’re not wasting anything.”

Everything has its purpose

McCallum grew up in Hastings, Minnesota where she milked and mucked on her grandparents’ dairy farm. (Today, she and her husband farm next door.) She was a 4H kid who showed dairy cows at the fair most summers. The experience kindled her abiding interest in animal husbandry and meat science, which she pursued at the U of M (McCallum worked in the Meat Lab as a student) and earned a master’s in animal science.

Even after all her years in the business of butchering, does she still get sentimental about the animals? Well, maybe a little. McCallum hopes to add cows to her own farm someday and says she wouldn’t want to do her own butchering. “That’s where I draw the line,” she says.

And when the Meat Lab buys 4H animals at the State Fair, the old 4H-er in her wells up. “Those ones are hard to do—knowing that those animals are basically someone’s pet. But I always tell my students, the animals are raised for a purpose, and their purpose is to feed people. Kind of like the circle of life,” McCallum says. “It is hard, but also, it’s going to do a lot of good. It’s going to feed people. It’s going to go into research. It’s going to help with doing heart-valve replacements. It’s amazing how many products come from animal agriculture.”

Goldy’s Smokehouse is open to the public on Wednesdays from 2 to 5 p.m. The salesroom is located in Room 166 Andrew Boss Lab of Meat Science on the St. Paul Campus.

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