To: NMA Members who are Meat Grinders

Fr: Rosemary Mucklow, NMA Executive Director

Re: Follow-up to Grinders Meeting

February 23, 1998

There was standing room only as the Grinders Meeting in San Francisco on Friday, February 13, 1998. There was good information, good discussion, and a resolution by grinders to make the choice to plan their destiny!

The first step in the process is a day-long meeting on March 4, 1998 at the Los Angeles International Airport to develop GMPs and SOPs for manufacturing ground beef. NMA has asked Dr. Kerri Harris of the Institute of Food Science and Engineering at TAMU to facilitate this effort. She joined us at the Grinders Meeting and discussed how we would proceed with this project.

NMA needs from the participating firms in advance of the meeting a simple product flow chart. These will be treated confidentially, and not redistributed in any way. This will help Kerri to resolve minor differences for the product flow depending ion different types of production facilities., WE also need from each participating firm, in advance of the meeting, a list of the end products (e.g. bulk, patties, etc.), the type of grind (coarse, fine, all meat, patty mix, etc.) and the target customer type (e.g. beef patties for fast food, retail vacuum chub, ten or twenty-pound chub for regrinding at retail, etc). These should be FAXed to Rosemary Mucklow at NMA and to Dr. Kerri Harris at IFSE/TAMU (409) 862-3075 ASAP.

Finally, please confirm your attendance at the meeting which will be held at Embassy Suites (LAX North), 9801 Airport Blvd., Los Angeles, Tel. (310) 215-1000 beginning at 9am on Wednesday, March 4, 1998. NMA has not confirmed a room block at the Hotel. A group luncheon has been arranged and participants will be billed.

If there are questions, please call us.

Send to:

Rosemary Mucklow, NMA FAX (510) 653-6186

Dr. Kerri Harris, Institute of Food Science & Engineering FAX (409) 862-3075

NAME____________________________________

COMPANY________________________________

The following persons plan on attending the Wednesday, March 4 meeting to develop GMPs and SOPs for manufacturing ground beef:

1)________________________________________

2)________________________________________

We will send, by FAX to Rosemary and Kerri, the flow chart and end product listings by Friday, February 27, 1998.