Cutting Edge Meat a good neighbor to Central Valley
Texas native Lou Cruz, general manager of Cutting Edge Meat, a
meat packing plant owned by San Benito County resident Sallie
Calhoun, has been working in the meat packing industry since he was
16.
”
Unfortunately, both of my parents ended up getting ill,
”
Cruz said.
”
That’s when I went to work.
”
Cruz was the breadwinner for his five younger sisters and both
his parents.
Cutting Edge Meat a good neighbor to Central Valley
Texas native Lou Cruz, general manager of Cutting Edge Meat, a meat packing plant owned by San Benito County resident Sallie Calhoun, has been working in the meat packing industry since he was 16.
“Unfortunately, both of my parents ended up getting ill,” Cruz said. “That’s when I went to work.”
Cruz was the breadwinner for his five younger sisters and both his parents.
His three older brothers helped out when they could, but they had already left home, Cruz said.
The meat packing plants paid between $12 and $15 per hour, Cruz said.
“Back in the ’70s, that was a lot of money,” Cruz said.
Cruz has stayed in the meat packing industry all these years because he enjoys it.
“The reason I stay in it is, one, we’re helping feed the world,” Cruz said.
Cutting Edge is helping a lot of small producers, Cruz said. Cutting Edge Meat is the closest USDA-certified facility to San Benito County.
Calhoun has a mission. She wants to prove that a meat packing plant can be a good neighbor. A tour through Cutting Edge Meat demonstrates her dedication to doing things right.
Located in Newman, large swaths of farmland bordered by golden hills surround Cutting Edge. The fields are punctuated by rickety barns and small houses that appear to be aging cheerfully. The gray cement building looks like any other factory.
When approaching Cutting Edge one day last week, the only sounds heard were songbirds and a persistent hum from the air conditioner and other machinery. No discernible smell was detected.
About 25 people work at the plant, Calhoun said.
“We haven’t had any problem finding good people to work here,” Calhoun said. “Of all the people who work here, only two moved here.”
When Calhoun started Cutting Edge, she reopened a preexisting packing plant.
Some of the workers are new to the industry, Calhoun said. Others used to work at the plant.
The livestock receiving area is to the right side of the building. There are separate pens for large animals, such as cattle, and small animals, such as sheep or goats.
Last Friday, Cutting Edge Staff were receiving calves.
“Right now, we’re harvesting a lot of veal,” Calhoun said. “If you’re born a male on a dairy, you don’t have a long life.”
On a dairy farm, males are unnecessary, Calhoun said.
“The good news is, you get turned into food, into veal,” Calhoun said.
Calves become veal quickly.
Cutting Edge staff can process 40 or 50 small animals an hour, Calhoun said.
“One thing we’re trying to prove is a packing plant is not an environmental nightmare,” Calhoun said.
There is a duck club next door to Cutting Edge. Calhoun sees their missions as similar. Club members rent an expanse of land as wetland for the preservation of wildfowl that they hunt for sport and food.
“We’ve been to a couple of meetings,” Calhoun said.
She wanted to demonstrate that her environmental concerns were the same as theirs, Calhoun said.
The plant has had a few different owners over the last 10 years, said Robert Ross, a cattle rancher who lives across the street from Cutting Edge.
“All of them less than desirable,” Ross said. “We used to have a lot of problems, but not anymore.”
He had ongoing problems with the previous owner.
“I had a problem with them dumping their guts and eyeballs back there,” Ross said, pointing to the front of his property. “It was getting into the duck club, into the water.”
Federal government officials eventually shut them down, Ross said.
He has no complaints about Calhoun.
“They’re real good neighbors,” Ross said. “They run a great operation. I hope they stay there. They’ve helped the community.”
There was a lot of activity at Cutting Edge on the day of the tour.
A couple of men from a small cattle ranch in Contra Costa County were visiting the facility.
“Small producers have this big problem with the new laws,” said Howard Lentzner, owner of Ennes Ranch. He sells beef at farmers’ markets in the Bay Area.
He cannot sell individual cuts unless it is slaughtered, processed and packaged at a USDA-certified facility. Before Cutting Edge opened, the closest USDA-certified facility was in Chico. With the price of diesel, the trip costs about $100.
“With a load, it’s about four and a half hours,” Lentzner said. “This is a lot closer for us.” Cutting Edge is only about an hour and a half away, he said.
Immediately after entering the plant, a visitor must don a disposable jacket, hair net and helmet. The soles of footwear were scrubbed and hands were sanitized.
“Whenever you go into a packing plant, you go from the cleanest to the dirtiest” to prevent contamination, Calhoun said.
Through a large metal door is the cooler.
Rows of carcasses, grass-fed beef and veal, were hanging upside down from hooks in the ceiling.
“Everything has to be chilled for 24 hours,” Calhoun said.
Heads peered out from a large plastic container.
“Pretty much everything gets sold,” Calhoun said.
Through another metal door is the fabrication room.
“This is where they cut the meat,” Calhoun said. “We keep it closer to freezing.”
It is easier to cut the meat at a lower temperature, Calhoun said.
About eight men were working on the floor of the cutting room while the supervisor, a large, stern looking man, watched. Rails attached to wooden beams lined the ceiling. Several carcasses were hanging from hooks in one corner of the room.
Different cuts of meat were sorted in huge, plastic lined cardboard boxes.
“What is happening in this room is an art,” Calhoun said.
Several men were trimming meat on metal tables topped by white cutting boards. One man operated the Cryovac machine. It packages meat in airless plastic bags.
Some plants only operate as slaughterhouses, Calhoun said. That means the producer must travel to another USDA-certified facility to have the carcasses processed and packaged.
“There are ranchers who still have to do that,” Calhoun said. “Especially if you’re a little guy, you can’t go travel all over California with three animals.”
Through a huge metal door, is the harvest room. Large and small animals are killed in separate areas of the killing room, Calhoun said. Large animals have their own pen, a long and narrow space that has red metal sides.
A sign hanging next to the pen lists the signs of an improper stunning- rhythmic breathing, struggling and conscious, making sounds and blinking and wide opened eyes.
The sign informs employees that an improperly stunned animal must be restunned before any further processing.
Although no animals were killed while the visitors watched, Cruz explained the process. The stun gun looks like an oversized nail gun. It has a bolt that is shot into an animal’s forehead.
It is one person’s job to kill animals, Cruz said.
“Like this guy over here, he shackles the animal, kills the animal then he bleeds the animal,” Cruz said.
Plant staff can process 110 big animals per day, Cruz said.
Lentzner discussed with Cruz the possibility of processing kosher beef at Cutting Edge. Although he has never sold it before, some of his customers were asking about kosher beef, Lentzner said.
“That gentleman is talking about writing a business plan,” Calhoun said. “That was our fondest hope. That people write business plans and do things, try different things because we’re here.”
For enough money, Cutting Edge staff can make it work, Calhoun said.
That is unusual in the meat packing industry. Most plants are too large to meet special requests, Calhoun said.
During the tour, Cutting Edge staff was processing sheep from Calhoun’s Paicines Ranch, where she also lives.
“It’s actually very precise work,” Calhoun said. “You don’t want to damage either the hide or the skin.”
The sheep, in various stages of nudity, were hanging from hooks attached to metal rails. The men wore hardhats, rubber boots and white collared shirts under large brown smocks. Around their waists hung metal holsters with one or more knives.
They used the knives to gradually slice hide from carcass. When enough of the hide was loosened, it slid off from the head, still in one piece. After the carcass is gutted, the head is removed.
“The last thing that happens is they go through the carcass wash,” Calhoun said.
The carcass wash looks like a large metal box. Inside, the carcass is washed before it travels into the fabrication room for processing.
A USDA inspector, a thin woman with gray hair, examined each carcass.
“For cattle, she has to be here or we can’t kill,” Calhoun said.
Taking care of the animals is the most important component, Cruz said.
“I tell people, the good Lord put them here for us to take care of them, because in the end, they are going to take care of us,” Cruz said. “Every packing plant is the same. It’s the people who work there that are different.”
Packing plants are judged by the worst members of the industry, Cruz said. “There’s a lot of good people who try to do things the right way.”
Calhoun and Cruz are two of them, Cruz said.
