Food safety is the top priority for all food processing plants, and meat processors may face more inherent risks than other processors, and because of this risk they will learn to adapt to additional Regulations. However, food safety is not the only thing they have to consider.

Whether it is beef, lamb, salmon, or free-stocked hens, the raw materials involved are expensive and the profits are sometimes as thin as sharp knives. Animal rights are also a matter of development. Like any other manufacturer, meat packers, poultry processing plants and aquatic processors must raise standards to meet these concerns while reducing their carbon footprint.

As has just been said, with the recent years of innovative technology and new technology, these factories also have many opportunities. A desire to improve the performance of all aspects brings a new paradigm, and the plant manager no longer tends to tighten expenses and simply because the procedure is to follow the standard operating procedures.

Slaughter and processing plants are more likely to stay away from farms, and further processing is usually done in separate buildings, or there are some isolated arrangements. Equipment manufacturers to provide more hygienic design. Health systems or equipment suppliers to provide new solutions. People continue to judge farm and animal health practices from the entire process as well as the final product.

Continuous technological innovation enables meat processors to improve speed and efficiency, and better control of the deviations, which are related to the characteristics of the industry in which the raw materials of each unit are almost as unique as snowflakes.

"Although meat, poultry and aquatic processors are faced with the same challenges as other processors in the food industry," says Craig Colgrove, an eastern sales manager at NuTec Manufacturing in New Lenox, Illinois. They have undergone some of the most detailed inspections, as these checks are related to increasing and more stringent regulations that govern how the processors are operating.The fear of food-borne diseases and the rules that the operator must obey now must comply with the rules and regulations Are increasing. "

Fight against bacteria

Looking back on the history of American food-borne diseases, some major events have involved beef, pork and poultry meat. Last year alone, contaminated Atlantic salmon caused hundreds of people in the Netherlands and the United States to be sick. Including the dairy (in history) and other food parts of agricultural products (recently), and when it comes to finding ways to eliminate or control pathogens such as E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes, the meat processing plant May face the greatest challenge.

Charles Giambrone, Technical and Management Manager, Security Division, Rochester Midland, New York, says disinfection is only part of the food safety scenario and many factories are assisted by external disinfection services.

"There are three different ways to control pathogens in your products," says Giambrone. "He explains that these three pathways include disinfection, interference chemistry and ingredient solutions. He described the three solutions as A, B, and C.

"The A program is a ingredient method that uses a nematocyst-like peptide to control pathogens and is usually combined with one of the other methods," says Giambrone. "There are not many companies using this method because if they try to keep a clean label, they do not Like to use additives.

The B program relates to improving the hygienic condition of the surface and equipment, while the C program involves interference - the use of chemical cleaning products. In addition to isolating work functions and using other precautionary measures, most meat and poultry plants use some combination, and other precautions are part of their Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) program. Surface and equipment disinfection may be the most widely accepted method, but it is more important than this method that all procedures should include proof.

"Interventions have been popular since the 1990s, including various acids, acid chlorides, chlorine oxides and acetyl bromide (in use)," said Giambrone. "Peracetic acid is widely used in the poultry industry.

The steam heating of the body surface is sometimes used on the beef body to prevent the surface from carrying E. coli.

Giambrone continued: "The factory has also undergone tremendous changes, and factory design and ground design are now a key part of food safety, and the old forms of isolation and transportation are chaotic and problematic, and the use of imported and outgoing transport has become the standard."

For the raw material area and cooking area using different colors of uniforms and boots, and sometimes even a separate lounge. Regional isolation is another method that allows employees to form clear and consistent routines for isolating equipment and exposure contamination.

"Finally, you need a way to have multiple elements, and try to eliminate pathogens in as many different places as you can."

In some of these innovations may be just around the corner, some of which are like phage (or antibiotic) virus technology. Including products from EcoShield, Intralyti, Maryland, USA. Phage is a virus that attacks special bacteria. E. coli 0157: H7 may be one of the most common and terrible bacteria that the meat industry must fight with. The company was approved by the US Department of Agriculture to use this phage in 2011, and it is said that EcoShield can reduce E. coli 0157: H7 in crushed meat by more than 95%.

Win profits

Using safe and healthy products to meet consumer demand is the first job, but then it will be necessary to be competitive in terms of quality, flavor and price. In terms of quality and flavor, there is an ancient slaughtering process that provides some principles that can be used in modern automated processing environments. Of course, the key is to balance those sometimes contradictory priorities.

"Meat, poultry and aquatic processors are operating with very meager profits, so any cost savings can have a big impact on profitability," says Dave Howard, regional sales manager for Robert Reiser, Massachusetts. "Many machines offered by Reiser Are able to help processors save costs in a number of ways, namely, manpower savings, process optimization or multifunction machines that can replace two or three or more other machines.

As an example, Reiser's Vemag filling machine (sausage machine) enables sausage processors to produce a higher quality finished sausage with high density, Howard added. The result is a reduction in the cost of each sausage casings and a significant savings throughout the year. Vacuum processed sausages reduce cooking and drying time.

Colgrove said NuTec is always challenged by new applications for finding new technologies and helping processors to work more effectively.

"In order to provide our users with more integrated and decentralized systems, we are increasingly focusing on the development of more ancillary equipment," he said.

For meat processors, any discussion of efficiency can make them think of the psychological frustration of the fallen beef image last year.

Policy analyst Joel Greene prepared a policy report for Congress, "" lean beef ":" pink meat residue "controversy" at the beginning of the description of the understatement: "thin beef argument proves: consumers of modern food production views and Understanding can quickly affect the market and / or the operating conditions of a company.

Giambrone points out that lean beef allows raw materials to be processed extra, thus providing economic benefits and some benefits of sustainability, with the benefit that a higher percentage of each animal can be used for food.

Sustainable operation

As food safety and hygiene practices become more aggressive, the use of water in meat and poultry processing has continued to increase in recent years. But the Green Initiative makes meat processing plant operators looking for ways to do more with less water. This usually means handling, reusing, and converting water from one use to another. Processed water can sometimes be used in situ cleaning and other disinfection systems.

Giambrone says, like all manufacturing operations, meat processing plants are becoming more concerned with the use of energy, from lighting to all aspects of process equipment heating.

Consumers' concerns about animal rights are usually the most obvious when bad practice is exposed, but it is more noticeable for many consumers that Cargill now installs third-party remote video surveillance to strengthen the slaughterhouse Of humane practice. Only last year, the American Meat Institute produced a positive video of American beef production, which was narrated by Temple Grandin, an animal behaviorologist who has long been associated with the protection of animal rights.

While strengthening control and more oversight of the service, NuTec's Colgrove doubts whether some of the efforts have gone too far, or have deviated from the goal.

"I have seen in the factory and in the repair shop that the disinfecting efforts on the tools and components used to repair the processing equipment are more than the effort to manage the actual production of the product." In my opinion, we are trying to Creating an almost completely sterile world or environment and operating in it, and always discover new problems that need attention, which makes you wonder if this will end, and how many processors will be able to look with the seemingly endless order (list) Keep in sync. "

However, in at least one example, the rest of the food processing industry has just caught up with the safety practices that have been practiced in the meat industry. Last year, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released and drew the discussion of two new regulations on the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) to extend the HACCP program requirements to almost all food processors. Meat processing plants have been improving HACCP for nearly two decades.