My Mineola Learning Experience

Monday morning, at 4:30 in the morning, I woke to my alarm saying, "Mineola Trip." Now in the back of my head, I was thinking to myself on how nervous I was to do something that I've never done before. Never in my life have I visited a packing plant, but I got up from bed with forced confidence because it was new to me. I got to the farm at 5:45 in the morning and off we went on an hour long ride to Mineola.

Once in Mineola, I learned how to do all the paperwork that comes with the process. We are always the first in the mornings, so it is the easiest for us to keep up with our tags. These tags help us keep track of our deliveries and the amount of beef we can use on one trip. It's important to know that the carcass was dry aged for 3 weeks. After the paperwork, we get our beef in many boxes that includes all the cuts of meat and we start to separate the cuts into coolers. It is crucial to make sure that you have the exact amount of cuts equally into each cooler. I felt more confident as I got to see how the whole process unravel. Making sure that I had each cooler matched with all the other coolers and separating special orders can be very challenging, but you have to stay focused and keep count in your head as you do the job.

What I learned from my first trip is that you have to always pay attention to every single detail.