A new organization has been formed for women in the meat industry to network, mentor, and grow their involvement.
The Women?s Meat Industry Network (WMIN) seeks to address the underrepresentation of women in the meat industry. U.S. Meat Export Federation (USMEF) Senior Director of Export Services Cheyenne McEndaffer, one of the co-founders of the WMIN, said that the organization has been two years in the making and now represents more than 500 members.
?With our land grant system in the U.S., we have the best meat science university programs in the world, and we have amazing talent coming out of those programs,? McEndaffer said. ?And if you look at these programs, from a demographic, I would say at least half or a majority of those programs are women. But then when you get into certain sectors or industry, they’re not there. I don’t know where they went. What are the misconceptions and the actual perceptions and hurdles we can address to attract and retain talent into what we see is an amazing industry to be a part of??
The organization, which publicly launched in January, has a specific set of tools it intends to develop.
?We have three primary focuses,? McEndaffer said. ?Professional development- there’s two tiers there and there are technical trainings that we can offer. We have amazing intel already in our 500 plus membership that we can pull from. This could be a maintenance one on one, but this could also be things like return to work, virtual exhaustion, or negotiating a raise. Mentoring is also going to be a huge focus of what we’re doing, not only from the top down, but also reverse mentoring, because we really see getting that feedback back to leadership on the things that are working or not working in a company as beneficial for employee retention, which is something every industry is struggling with. And then lastly, it would be networking, which again is building out this community.?
The organization is targeted to those in all sectors of the meat industry? from academia to production and the C-suite? and is not limited to women. More about WMIN and their mentoring, professional development, and networking opportunities is available at www.WMIN.org.
