Hawaii Community College’s Ko Education Center in Honoka‘a announces the launch of its new six-week, noncredit butchery course starting in spring 2025.
The course is made possible through a four-year, $950,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The training is part of the UH Meat &Poultry Workforce Consortium, in collaboration with UH-Hilo and the College of Tropical Agriculture &Human Resources at UH-Manoa.
The course, the first of its kind at Hawaii Community College, offers students comprehensive, hands-on training in butchery, including humane slaughter methods, carcass breakdown and meat processing. The curriculum also covers food safety standards, proper meat labeling and animal husbandry to prepare students for employment in Hawaii’s butchery industry.
Bill Wong, co-founder and owner of 17 Ranch in Kohala and the course instructor, emphasized its significance for Hawaii.
“We are pioneering the kind of butchery that’s needed today,” he said on a press release. “This course is a small piece, but it comes at a time when we are concerned about the future of our planet and our food sources. What students will learn in six weeks would normally take a year to learn in the workforce.”
Wong, who attended the National School of Meat Cutting, noted the similarities between his own education and the course he will bring to Ko Education Center.
“I knew we needed this in Hawaii,” he said. “The Big Island is the largest producer of beef cattle in the state. It’s necessary to revive this part of the industry. We are building a workforce.”
Hawaii Community College will publicly announce the butchery course during the 2024 Hamakua Sugar Days Festival, taking place now through Oct. 20.
An information booth will be set up this Saturday during the festival’s parade day, where Wong, alongside other Hawaii Community College programs, including agriculture and culinary, will share details about the cutting-edge course.
The grant that supports this butchery program is part of a larger effort to improve pathways for Native Hawaiian and underserved students in agriculture-related fields.
Key objectives of the UH Meat &Poultry Workforce Consortium include improving animal science transfer pathways from community colleges to four-year institutions, developing a skilled labor force for meat and poultry production, fostering a sense of belonging for underserved students, and enhancing industry connections.
“We are excited to be able to offer this new course and others at Ko Education Center,” Hawaii Community College Chancellor Susan Kazama said in the press release. “The USDA grant aims to improve opportunities for Native Hawaiian and underserved students in agriculture-related fields and fits perfectly with our college’s mission to train students for jobs on our island.”
The new butchery program is also about promoting food security in the islands.
“We need to take a step back. Butchery is a lost art,” Wong said. “There’s better utilization and less waste when processing whole animals locally, which helps sustain and grow our food supply, just as Native Hawaiians did long ago, without relying on maritime shipping.”
To express interest in the butchery course at Ko Education Center, fill out the form at https://go.hawaii.edu/aQC.
For more information, email hawvcca@hawaii.edu.