Meats Lab

The Penn State Meats Laboratory is located along Porter road from Beaver Stadium on its east side. The 16,000 square foot facility was built in 1958, occupied in 1960, and is equipped for conducting livestock slaughter and meat cutting and processing in support of meats teaching, research and extension. The Meat Lab has over 1200 square feet of refrigerated space including freezers and coolers for storage and processing of carcasses, cuts and processed meat products. Separate refrigerated and frozen storage areas are available for research projects. Equipment is available to do most types of commercial meat processing including sawing, grinding, chopping, macerating, injecting, massaging, cooking/smoking and packaging operations. The Meat Lab operates as a USDA inspected meat processing facility.

The building houses two classrooms of 200 and 40 person capacities. The larger classroom was designed to allow whole carcasses to be rolled into the room on an overhead rail. The smaller classroom provides a comfortable atmosphere for small classes and meat industry workshops. Courses taught each year at the Meat Lab include Animal Products Technology, Meat Animal Evaluation, and Muscle Foods Processing. The lower level of the Meat Lab includes faculty and staff offices, research labs, a kitchen area and living quarters for three students who live and work in the facility. Recent research projects include studies of microbiological safety of meat, low-fat meat product technology, and meat packaging technologies and use of electronic sensors for assessing meat properties.

The retail area of the unit provides an outlet for most of the meat product resulting from the various activities. Sales are held most Fridays between 9:30AM and 3:00PM and are open to the public. Special sales events organized by student clubs are also arranged through the facility, often allowing the students in those organizations to gain meat processing and marketing experience.