What will be your favorite part of the AAMP Convention? Will it be the educational sessions, the trade show, networking with old and new friends, or perhaps the American Cured Meat Championships (ACMC)? If you like the idea of having your cured meat products judged against other products from across the country for comparison, then the ACMC is just the place to do it!

With 29 classes this year to choose from, including the 2018 Featured Class of Barbeque Sausage, you can enter one or all of the categories for evaluation by experts in the field. For the competition in Kansas City, the 2018 ACMC Judges from academia will hail from various states throughout the country. There will also be AAMP operator members, selected from the ‘Cured Meats Hall of Fame’, joining the judging team.

Don’t miss this opportunity to throw your hat into the ring and possibly win a coveted American Cured Meat Championships plaque for entering those special popular products from your place of business. Perhaps you will be able to show your customers that your meat ranked in the top four – Grand Champion, Reserve Grand Champion, Champion, or Reserve Champion – at the only national premier cured meat competition of its kind across the entire United States.

The product taking top marks at the competition will receive the coveted ‘Clarence Knebel Best of Show Memorial Award’. The participant who competes the best overall throughout the entire competition will receive the ‘Cured Meat Excellence Award’.

Stick around for the ACMC display time following the awards ceremony, where you will find many AAMP members willing to share their knowledge and insights on processing, sales, catering, and more. Learning from ACMC Judges and fellow processors remains one of the many benefits of getting involved in the American Cured Meat Championships!

PRICE: $20 PER ENTRY; ONE ENTRY ALLOWED PER CLASS.

ON-SITE REGISTRATION: JULY 19, 2018

Note: You must be a Member of the American Association of Meat Processors to be eligible to enter into the American Cured Meat Championships.

Rules and Registration available online. For more information, please visit www.aamp.com.

2018 University Class Competition added to ACMC

AAMP is pleased to announce that the University Class competition will once again be held in conjunction with the American Cured Meat Championships (ACMC), July 19-21, 2018, in Kansas City, Missouri.

The University Class provides a venue to students who have an interest in processed meats to compete at the intercollegiate level. In no way is the class meant to compete with the processor member, but merely provide students an opportunity to enter into a friendly competition between schools. Besides being able to interact with processor members during convention, the main goal is for students to learn more about meat processing and the applied science involved in creating various cured meats.

The competition is open to students who have an allied membership represented in some fashion from their respective institutions. The type of product(s) that students produce will vary during subsequent years at the ACMC and follow the same rules and entry guidelines for the designated product class.

For 2018, two product classes, the Cured Specialty Meat Products class and Fermented Summer Sausage class, will be made available for competition for the University Class. All schools wishing to enter product in these classes will comply with the guidelines set forth in the ACMC competition rules concerning the designated class.

Schools will still follow check-in procedures that processor members comply with, as well as be subject to rules and registration fees for product entries. Product entered into the University Class will be not be comingled or mixed in any way with products from processor member entries. To achieve this, University Class product entries will be checked in at a separate time from that of regular ACMC product check-in. University Class product will also have a location in a judging area away from similar product types, and the scorecards, although identical in content, will be marked accordingly to separate them from the 2018 ACMC.

For eligibility, rules and registration, please visit the ACMC tab under AAMP’s website at www.aamp.com/event-calendar/acmc.

Please begin now, especially in your product development courses, addressing this potential event for your students. Students must preregister for the competition by Friday, June 29, 2018.