GREEN BAY, WIS. — Carnivore Meat Company, the maker of Vital Essentials and Nature’s Advantage freeze-dried pet food and treat brands, announced Dec. 29 it has donated its ultraviolet (UV) sterilization equipment to two local hospital systems.

HSHS hospitals in Eastern Wisconsin, including St. Vincent Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital Medical Center in Green Bay, St. Clare Memorial Hospital in Oconto Falls, and St. Nicholas Hospital in Sheboygan will benefit from the UV sterilization equipment, as well as hospitals in the local Prevea Health network.

"It is our sincere hope the HSHS Eastern Wisconsin hospitals and Prevea Health will be able to assist even more health care workers and first responders in addition to businesses, locally or regionally, should they find themselves in need," said Lanny Viegut, chief executive officer and owner of Carnivore Meat Company. "We're blessed to be in a position to help and play a proactive role in overcoming COVID-19 related difficulties."

This comes after the company lent the UV sterilization equipment in April to local health care facilities for the sterilization of masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE).

"We were inspired to move quickly and help ensure our community health care providers could access safe, clean masks as needed and at a time when PPE was scarce across the nation," Viegut said.  "President Trump's March 21 call to action for America to help our front-line workers sparked the idea of using our UV equipment for mask and PPE sterilization, and we were able to act quickly." 

Upon relocating the UV sterilizer to a clean room facility in March, it became the “first known fully operational, continuous in-line UV PPE sterilization facility in the United States,” Carnivore Meat Company reported.

The facility and UV sterilizer from Carnivore have since processed thousands of masks and PPE for health care facilities and other front-line workers, including police and fire departments, dental offices and other businesses local to Northeastern Wisconsin.

Carnivore Meat Company said its efforts have so far benefitted nearly 70 organizations amid a national shortage of N95 masks.

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