Drew Ward of Pacproinc. lends his insights into the trends he's seeing in automation of meat and poultry processing plants, as well as the workforce challenges facing the industry.
In 2018, there were 109 humane handling enforcement actions posted to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Services (FSIS) Web site.
Capturing a lead and cultivating it into a sale isn’t a quick process. The sales cycle in any business-to-business industry is a much longer endeavor because it takes time to properly market complex products such as packaging machinery to a highly informed buying audience.
For a second year in a row, beef recalls are up and on pace to eclipse last year’s figure. By November 2019, 27 recalls were ordered (compared with 31 overall in 2018, totaling 13 million pounds of beef), according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Three-dimensional (3-D) printing — or more correctly, Additive Manufacturing (AM) — has the potential to change everything with respect to spare parts inventory. As the technology develops, people will be able to manufacture parts at almost any location, at any time they choose.
Although Dr. Temple Grandin wrote the book on best animal welfare practices, much can still be learned to make slaughter and stunning practices more humane.
In addition to vision systems boosting food safety, processors are using vision systems for standard processing procedures such as monitoring label registration along with missed and faulty packaging to help with quality assurance.
Technology in the meat industry tends to be cyclic. Over a period of three to five years, that innovation disseminates through the meat industry and is adopted by the leading meat and poultry processors.