On the back page of the first Meatingplace magazine of 2022 you’ll see the beautiful, smiling face of a Nepalese woman. She’s posing for a portrait, to be sure, but she’s smiling for other logical reasons too. She has come to the United States in search of a better life, she has secured gainful employment, and she works for a company that is doing more than just paying her; they’re investing in her life and her future.

Choma Thapa is the first subject of our new monthly feature “Backbone.” The name is suitable in a few ways: it’s the back of the magazine; it’s a critical anatomical component of all of us and the animals we harvest for food; and production workers like her are the figurative backbone of this integral industry.

The company that Choma Thapa works for is SugarCreek. Based in Washington Court House, Ohio, the company has evolved from a $50 million raw bacon processor in 1990 to a nearly $1 billion diversified food solutions provider today. The company’s investment in cooking and packaging technologies is impressive, sure. But even more impressive is its investment in bettering the lives of its people and the communities that surround its plants.

For those reasons and more, we’re honoring SugarCreek (see Company Profile, p. 58) and its owner, John G. Richardson (see Thought Leader, p. 84), with our Richard L. Knowlton award for 2022. Named after the legendary Hormel Foods leader and visionary, the award recognizes business leadership, industry leadership, innovation and corporate responsibility.

It’s that last criterion that feels most important now, at a time of historic labor constraints, inflation and supply chain challenges. And what processors like SugarCreek have figured out, as experts also emphasize in our Issues article, “Paradigm shift”(p. 28), is that raising wages is just the beginning. It’s the easy part. Meaningful strides in recruiting and retaining people, however, come more from education, from creating paths of career advancement in the plant, and from building homes and lives outside of it.

SugarCreek, and many other processors, have all the technological bells and whistles that are fun to talk about and, even better, see in action. They have earnest initiatives underway that will reduce their carbon footprint and try to protect natural resources on this planet, too. They can even sell products now on meeting what has come to be consumers’ understanding of sustainability. But the definition of “sustainability” means nothing without people. The same goes for the definition of “success.”

In the faces of the people you’ll see on the back page of this magazine every month, we hope you’ll see the dedication and determination it takes to achieve both. We hope you’ll look into their eyes and feel an emotional connection. We hope you’ll see yourselves, where you started and how far you’ve come. We hope you see possibility. We hope you’ll learn some things about these humans, and that you’ll want to learn more.

Yeah, this is the animal protein industry. But it’s a people business.

Editor's note: This article ran as the Editorial in the January issue of Meatingplace magazine.

People, please!

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