The Core Purpose of AMSA

AMSA fosters community and professional development among individuals who create and apply science to efficiently provide safe and high quality meat (defined as red meat (beef, pork and lamb), poultry, fish/seafood and meat from other managed species).

More Than a Half Century of Service

The AMSA’s roots are a half century deep in meat science, beginning with the first Reciprocal Meat Conference held in 1948. Formally incorporated in 1964, AMSA is organized as a professional society. Its unique role is to provide the forum for all interests in meat—commercial, academic, government and consumer—to come together in a reasoned, scientifically-based atmosphere and address the needs of the processing and marketing segments of industry, the consuming public, its own members and others in the biological and nutritional sciences.

Development of Meat Science in the United States

Dr. R. W. Bray, AMSA's first president, was a distinguished professor of meat science at the University of Wisconsin. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Reciprocal Meat Conference, he wrote a history of the development of the meat science discipline in the United States. That article is available here.

AMSA's Strategic Plan

In 2009, the AMSA Board adopted a new strategic governance process. At the core of this is a set of guiding principals, assumptions about the future and sets of goals and objectives that will be updated regularly. Details on the structure of the plan are posted here.