Meat Processor Academy Mastermind Program

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Brought to you by the same team that organized the Meat Processor Academy Short Course, we would like to invite you to join a small, intensive business accelerator program launching in February of 2025 that builds upon the curriculum of the short course. 

The Meat Processor Mastermind Program is a year long peer learning experience that will help you solve the the most challenging problems in your meat business, clean up your financial record keeping systems, improve your profit potential, and learn from experts in the industry. 

You will lay bare your business to other similarly sized meat businesses and collectively understand how to identify your key business metrics and compare them to your peers. This is a "all-hands-on-deck" immersive experience that is guaranteed to take your business to the next level.

The MPA Mastermind will take place from February 2025 to March 2026. Each month will include a three-hour long online group discussion on the last Wednesday of the month from 9-12am PST/12-3pm EST.

The Application Window is Now Closed.

Review Period: Applications will be reviewed February 1-3 , 2025.  Invitations to attend will be made the week of Second week of February. Full payment must be received by Feb. 28 to participate.

This is a competitive application process.

Since this is a small peer learning group, we will cap the audience at 15 similarly sized processors. As part of the application, you will have to agree to fully participate in the year-long program, including the monthly group discussions, working with a business coach, developing a Business Action Plan, and sharing your financial information with the group. 

If you cannot commit to these things, this program is not a good fit for you.

Who it's for:

• Applicants should be owners, operators, or key management staff. There can be 1-2 of you in the operation that participate regularly. If you don't know the financials of your business, this is not the program for you.
• Have been in operation for a minimum of two years. 
• Should have a minimum of 10 employees, up to 100 FTE employed at your business.
• Should be operating a state and/or federally inspected establishment. Purely custom-exempt businesses are not eligible to apply for this program. If you are in the process of obtaining your grant of inspection with a state or federal agency, you can apply.
• Must have completed the Meat Processor Academy short course (either the live version offered in March of 2023 or the self-paced version). If you haven't completed it yet, you can still sign up and complete the self-paced version before the Mastermind kicks off in February 2025.

• Monthly meetings that will include: expert speakers, real-life examples, tools for you to use in your own business, group discussion and problem-solving, homework. Meetings in an online format, allowing you to learn from the comfort of your home or workplace. Recordings are always available within 24 hours for review.
• 10 FREE Hours of 1-on-1 Financial Coaching:  Participants will be paired with a personal financial coach for up to 10 hours over the year to work on cleaning up their books, executing business goals and / or solving challenges unique to each participant (a $1,500 value alone)
• Each participant will walk away with: a cleaned up chart-of-accounts, key performance indicators (KPIs), benchmarking numbers and  an Action Plan
• Interactive lessons and expert guidance from boots-on-the-ground professionals  to help you apply what you learn
• Teamwork sessions, where you tackle your most difficult topics with peers from your cohort
• “Plant Management Roundtables” to work through current issues

The investment for this exclusive business accelerator program for meat processors is $1,500. Upon successful completion of the program in March of 2026, you will be refunded $500 of your investment. 

If the investment is a barrier to participation, there is a very small pool of partial scholarships reserved for low-income and underserved operators. 

Scholarship participants still must meet the processor size requirements listed above under Application Process. Please contact Rebecca Thistlethwaite at thistler@oregonstate.edu for details on the scholarship program.