Hello! Jonathan Huisinga here, and today I get to share some exciting news with you. A year ago, Rick Huisinga gathered a small group of LSI folks (myself, Chris Huisinga, Austin Huisinga and Mike Bregel) and gave us a challenge: Create a turkey burger that doesn’t suck. After we made some progress, Rick asked me to take the project on full-time to see where it would lead the organization; I accepted, and dove into researching the retail food industry, talking to experts, looking at equipment, markets, brokers, retail chains, marketing ideas, etc.  It soon became obvious that we were light-years from being able to develop a customer-engaged company that could provide exceptional products.

In the course of our research, we ran across an amazing little company with a great concept and an even greater team of people – Man Cave Craft Meats. Nick Beste started a Minneapolis-based Company that is undergoing rapid nationwide growth from its humble beginnings under a single awning at the Minneapolis Farmer’s Market. I reached out to learn more. We met and as we got to know each other, we realized that our values, dreams and aspirations would be a great match. We now share the vision of disrupting the grocery store meat counter with exceptional, innovative products, and have decided to invest in their company. Effective this week, our organization is an official partner of this edgy new consumer meat company!

I asked Nick for a quote for this announcement and he sent me this (particularly brown-nosey) reply,

“We’re incredibly honored to be partnering with a firm as solid and longstanding as LSI and look forward to a long and fun journey ahead. It has been a blast getting to know the team at LSI- their integrity is unparalleled and we feel truly at home. What Ted and Ray have built is incredible and we’re going to work tirelessly to be the next feather in their cap.”

Our LSI team sees this as a strategic investment that provides Man Cave the opportunity to continue its growth trajectory while allowing us to diversify and stay true to our corporate purpose: “Life-Science Innovations applies innovative solutions that help our customers provide safe and affordable animal protein to feed the world”. We are thrilled to join forces with Nick and his team, and we’re confident that this is going to be a company that we can be proud partners with for many years to come!

Man Cave offers a line of premium turkey burgers, beef burgers, pork sausages, breakfast links and chicken sausage (who knows what’s next?!?). The brand is generating a lot of buzz and excitement from retailers and consumers! They are rapidly expanding across the country, with their products appearing recently on the shelves in Safeway’s Denver stores, and preparations are under way to launch into Kroeger, Target and a whole list of other retailers in the next few months.

We do not intend to create a lot of fanfare about this partnership. Our purpose is to encourage and support an exciting company and a great management team as it finds its niche. We definitely do not want to inhibit the growth of Man Cave and its authentic entrepreneurial energy in the marketplace, so for now there will not be a link to their company on our websites and there will be no press release or public announcement about our partnership.

If you want to comment online about our company’s partnership with Man Cave, “like” their Facebook page or rave about products: that’s totally cool. We want our employees to get excited about joining forces with this little company with big aspirations, but at the same time we’d ask you to be wise with what you share with others so we do no harm to their brand in the process! In the meantime, I highly recommend that you try some of their products – they are amazing (my personal favorite is the buffalo-wing-blue-cheese-bratwurst). This may be difficult for some of you because of limited local availability until their nation-wide rollout is completed, but we’re going to work on getting everyone a taste of their products as soon as we can.

I’ve linked the initial article I read about Man Cave, and also included a brief interview with Nick in front of the Minneapolis Farmers Market booth. As you review this material, I’m guessing that you’ll find yourself getting as excited as we are about this partnership!

This article (written this past summer) is an excellent introduction to Man Cave.

This little follow-up article will let you “meat” Nick via a video shot over the summer at the Mpls Farmers Market.

 
If you have comments or questions for me – please let me know! For the foreseeable future, I’ll be spending at least 40% of my time working with the Man Cave Team as part of their roll-out and R&D efforts. If you have any favorite/secret meat recipes that you’d like to potentially share with the world – drop me a line! In the meantime, I hope you each have an exceptional day,

Jonathan Huisinga
LSI and Man Cave R&D
Jonathan.huisinga@life-scienceinnovations.com

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Employee Announcements 

Farewell Rob and Hoppie

These are two long-time Aurora Logistics drivers who has just recently left us for a new endeavor. The truck drivers are often “the face of the company” to our customers and Rob and Hoppie did a wonderful job of “taking care of the customer”.

Thank you Rob and Hoppie!

–Kurt Schimek

 

 

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HR/Employee Services

Check out these handy 401k guides for your LSI and Affiliates Retirement Plan from Empower Retirement:

Feel free to save these pdf’s to your desktop or print them out for future use.

 

Phone and Website Quick Reference Guide

 

Online Account Registration

 

The Human Resources/Employee Services Team specializes in benefits and payroll, compliance and policy, employee relations, ag-recruiting, legal compliance, and company & employee overall well-being. We are located on the first floor of Life-Science Innovations on the MinnWest campus at 1800 Technology Drive. We look forward to working with you!

Please message us via email at employee.services@life-scienceinnovations.com or give us a call at

320.222.9515 or 888.320.9750 extension 2515

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Recruiting Corner

 

INVITATION EXTENDED TO MARCH 18th!  CAREER DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOP

• The Career Workshop builds upon the foundational concepts learned in Go, Put Your Strengths to Work and offers the opportunity for further self-analysis on your strengths in conjuncture with your personal career goals.  It will provide an opportunity for deeper self-reflection by walking through building blocks to streamline career goals and possible next steps.  Do you have exceptional employees who are unsure of their next career step?  Are you a high achieving employee who knows their next steps but need help in putting together the building blocks on how to get there?  Then this is the perfect opportunity to obtain guidance and move forward.

• This invitation extends to both our management staff who would like to nominate their employees and employees who are interested in self-nomination.  This workshop will be limited to a maximum of 8 employees who are ready to participate fully with their time and effort.  The commitment of time will be (3) three 90 minute sessions over the lunch hour beginning the middle of March through the end of May.

• If you are personally interested in this opportunity or would like to nominate one of your staff, please reply to this invitation along with a note about your situation and motivation to participate via email michelle.falling@life-scienceinnovations.com or call me direct at (320) 222-9790 by Friday, March 18th.  

As always, thank you for your referrals and you are welcome to contact me with any questions you have regarding the new opportunities posted!  Contact me at michelle.falling@life-scienceinnovations.com | or just give me a call at O: (320) 222-9790  M: (320) 441-8596.  Thanks for trusting me to help you through the process!

– Michelle Falling, MN Affiliates Recruiting Specialist

Openings

Current status of all organizational openings.

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Welcome New Employees

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Turkey Recipes & Tips!

Check out this recipe for a beastly Spicy Turkey Burger with Barbecued Onions

 

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Employee Count

As of 03/11/16 we have 1652 employees