Before retirement he was associated with the University of Pretoria in the position of Professor in Animal Nutrition and later as Director of the ARC’s Animal Nutrition and Products Institute at Irene where he managed the interface between animal production, product development and consumer science. He is also an Extraordinary Professor at the Onderstepoort Faculty of Veterinary Science. Since retirement he is consulting for Agri SA, the Red Meat Industry and primarily also the Dairy Industry where he manages the R & D initiative of Milk SA. Apart from animal nutrition and management, he has vast experience in environmental issues and represents SA on the Scientific Committee for the Environment of the International Dairy Federation. One of his contributions in this regard is the argument that more emphasis should be put on carbon sequestration to limit the agricultural carbon footprint.
Dr Meissner has published more than 200 scientific publications and has received a number of recognitions, amongst others the Gold Medal from the SA Society for Animal Science, the Agricultural Writers Association’s award for Agricultural Scientist of the Year and the Person of the Year Award from the Animal Feed Manufacturers Association.