Rosemary Mucklow, known for her unapologetic tenacity, heartfelt but honest opinions and dedicated leadership on behalf of the meat industry, passed away on July 21 at age 94.
Mucklow served as executive director of the National Meat Association (NMA) from 1982-2007. Through her leadership and advocacy, NMA became a leading voice for meatpackers and processors, as the industry navigated regulatory and business issues in Washington and around the country.
Following the merger of NMA with the North American Meat Institute (now known as the Meat Institute), Mucklow continued to work with the industry as director emeritus and consultant.
A remembrance was released by President and CEO of the Meat Institute, Julie Anna Potts, in which Potts shared that Mucklow’s combination of toughness, humor and unshakeable integrity were with her in every battle she took on.
“Whether sitting across the table from regulators in Washington or mentoring the next generation of association leaders in our own offices,” Potts said. “She led this organization, in its earlier forms, through some of the most consequential changes our industry has ever faced, and she never once let us forget why the work mattered.”
Mucklow was born June 7, 1932, in Edinburgh, Scotland, the daughter of John William and Winifred Margaret Mucklow. Before coming to the United States, she worked in London as a nanny — where her sister, Margaret, served as a secretary to Winston Churchill, a connection Mucklow liked to invoke decades later in her own remarks to the industry. She emigrated to the U.S. in 1959 and became a naturalized citizen in 1968. She went on to earn her bachelor's degree, cum laude, from Golden Gate University in 1970.
Mucklow's career in the meat industry began almost by accident. In 1961, she was hired as a stenographer at a small San Francisco trade group, the Pacific Coast Meat Jobbers Association — later renamed the Pacific Coast Meat Association (PCMA). By her own account, she arrived knowing nothing about the meat business or the sweeping changes about to remake it. She would go on to lead that organization as its executive director for the next two decades, guiding it through the era of the "Big Five" packers and the aftermath of the Wholesome Meat Act.
In 1982, the PCMA merged with the Western States Meat Packers Association to form the National Meat Association (NMA), and Mucklow was named executive director — a position she held for 25 years, until 2007. Under her leadership, NMA became a leading voice for meat packers and processors on regulatory and business issues in Washington and beyond. When NMA later merged with the American Meat Institute to form the North American Meat Institute (NAMI), Mucklow continued her association with the industry as NAMI's Director Emeritus and a consultant, a role she held into her final years — capping a career that spanned more than 55 years in the meat business.
Mucklow was widely respected for her sharp institutional memory, her plainspoken wit, and her willingness to challenge policymakers on behalf of the industry she served. She was known for colorful, incisive analogies when arguing for risk-based food-safety policy, and for a work ethic that colleagues frequently described as tireless.
Her contributions were recognized widely across the industry. In 1996 Rosemary received the E. Floyd Forbes award presented by the National Meat Association in recognition of her outstanding services to the meat industry. In 2015, the U.S. Meat Export Federation honored her with its Mansfield Award, given in recognition of individuals who champion U.S.-Japan trade ties, for her decades of work helping place American meat on international markets. She was later named to the Meat Industry Hall of Fame's Senior Board of Trustees, where she continued to help select new inductees and safeguard the industry's history for the next generation.
Her passion for the next generation of meat industry leaders helped to create a scholarship foundation. She was active as a member of the Meat Foundation’s Board and has a scholarship in her honor.
Beyond her trade association work, Mucklow served on the U.S. Department of Agriculture's meat and poultry advisory committee, and as a trustee of the California Butchers Pension Trust and the Northern California Health Trust. She also served on the board of directors of the Peralta Cancer Research Institute in Oakland, Calif.
Reflecting on her career in 2016, Mucklow paraphrased Winston Churchill's wartime appeal for American support — "Give us the tools and we will finish the job" — to describe the partnership between the U.S. meat industry and the organizations, like USMEF, that helped open markets abroad. It was a fitting summary of how she saw her own decades of work: not as a solitary achievement, but as decades spent equipping an industry to do its job well.
If you wish to donate in Rosemary’s memory to the Meat Foundation’s online scholarship, you can visit the scholarship named in her honor at the Meat Foundation. The website is: https://meatinstituteawards.secure-platform.com/scholarships/
The Meat Institute confirmed a celebration of life will be held in Berkeley, Calif., with a date to be finalized.