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Cattle carcasses are sawed in half for butchering at a Cargill meat packing plant in Fort Morgan, Colo. Cargill is participating in trials of a cattle vaccine for e-coli among undertaking other measures to control the harmful-to-humans pathogen that can come from meat contaminated by cattle feces. © Kevin Moloney

Kevin says: I’ve been in few meat packing plants or slaughter houses. One of the first was a small community slaughterhouse in rural Bolivia where area families took their cattle to slaughter themselves. It was a dirty business, but wholesome to watch because of the connection between the families and their valued food source. There was no mechanization and it was just a simple, direct chore for the family cutting their beef. These images
8866100037, 8866100034, 8866100035, 8866100036 tell more of the story.

A bit later I went to my first American mechanized beef plant. They allowed me in for a half hour at the very beginning of their day’s run, just after everything had been scrubbed down. They feared I would make pictures that might disgust their customers. Despite that effort, I was covered in gore within that half hour and wanted to take repeated showers when I was finished. I was also only allowed to a small part of the line specific to the story.

But the scenes in this set of pictures from the Cargill plant in Ft. Morgan, Colo., were different. Assigned to a story on efforts to limit e-coli contamination, I went into this plant expecting to walk out as queasy as I had from their competitor’s plant. I was pleasantly surprised with how clean, efficient and sanitary conditions were there even hours after the line had started for the shift. Meat cutting is a dirty business, but this crew was very careful, and the plants sanitary efforts were the state of the art. I was given access to the entire process. We went through the plant in reverse — probably wisely — as anyone’s emotions would be different seeing cattle queued up for slaughter then following their carcasses through the process of becoming steaks and hamburger. I’m a beef eater and I am fully aware of the process through which that steak arrives on my plate. But watching any living thing die is always disturbing.

In this image, the beef cutters are sawing the carcass in half before sending it down the line for cutting into roasts, steaks and hamburger. The saw runs down the spinal cord so that nerve tissue can be removed to avoid BSD (mad cow disease) contamination. These are skilled workers who can run that saw neatly through the center of the spine without missing a beat, several times a minute. It is a hard job, but infused with a pride in craftsmanship. They were proud of their work, and I was happy to see a plant that actually increased my confidence in the food chain.

To see more stock photography by Kevin Moloney, visit Aurora Photos.