What if the key to improving food safety in thermal processing — heating, cooking and smoking — is more water?

Employee hygiene in packing plants is now not just about protecting food, but protecting employees.

Traditional processing of summer sausage applies lower fermentation pH values (≤4.6) and higher thermal treatments after fermentation to meet U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) performance standards for E. coli O157:H7 lethality (5D process; decimal reduction dose).

While listening to an inspiring podcast recently, the speaker made an impact on my view of the unusual times we as a global community have recently encountered due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Approximately 7 billion hot dogs are eaten between Memorial Day and Labor Day each year with 150 million eaten on July 4 alone, according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council (NHDSC).

The three main components of pre-harvest intervention — probiotics and prebiotics in animal feed, pathogen resistance through vaccines or antimicrobials, and biosecurity protocols — all work together to reduce foodborne pathogens in beef, poultry and pork. Each operation, however, has to tinker with the formula to create its ideal solution.

“We may never return to normal” is a phrase noted in newspaper articles, echoed by TV anchors and professed by self-proclaimed experts in the era of COVID-19. Certainly, the food and agriculture industries have not been spared the social and economic impacts of this pandemic.

A greater concentration of oxymyoglobin in meat results in consumer-preferred, bright, cherry-red color of beef.

We recently received an email about the passing of a retired industry member, customer and friend. I thought about how building close business and personal relationships have been such a big part of the culture of the industries we serve.