Shailey Wooldridge

Aspiring journalist

The Arkansas State University Meat Market in collaboration with Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry and Arkansas Game and Fish are producing snack sticks for the Backpack Program.  

The Foodbank of Northeast Arkansas uses the Backpack Program to distribute food over the weekends and holidays to children with food insecurity.  

Corey Readnour, Astate meats laboratory manager, said Arkansas Hunters Feeding the hungry made the snack stick production possible by donating a portion of their meat when they harvest a deer.  

“Today we’re working up about 1000 pounds by the time we add fat to that you’re looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 17 to 1800 pounds and that’s gonna make around 35,000 Snack sticks,” Readnour said. “Their goal for the nonprofit Arkansas Hunters Feeding the Hungry, they are trying to get around 100,000 Snack sticks a year.” 

Readnour said the snack sticks are good for the Backpack Program because they don’t have to be refrigerated.  

The Meat Market and Meat lab are state inspected facilities, allowing students and faculty to butcher Astate farm animals to sell at Judd Hill Farmers’ Market.  

Kudzaiishe Maringa, a sophomore agriculture student from Zimbabwe, is a special problems intern in the meat lab.  He said he assists in every step of processing meat.  

“I’ve learned a lot. There’s a lot of state-of-the-art machinery and I’m learning about health and safety,” Maringa said.  

Readnour said he teaches a meat science and processing class in which his students take part in killing animals from the farm for food processing. His class of 13 students helped with gathering meat for the snack sticks.  

The Meat Markets pricing is comparable to grocery stores, leaning to be more expensive due to the premium product.  

The meat market opens from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Mon, selling everything from breakfast meats to “Redwolf” beef patties.  

Readnour said the Meat Market is in the process of building a website where customers can preorder their meat online for pick up.