The United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) recently announced the finalization of new measurements to reduce Salmonella and Campylobacter in poultry and ground turkey products. Let’s review what you need to know as a poultry or turkey processor. Continue Reading “What You Need to Know About USDA’s New Poultry Safety Measures”
Today, our team is settling back into the office after exhibiting at PACK EXPO in Las Vegas. While packaging is fresh on our minds, let’s examine some fascinating packaging research released by The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies (PMMI) earlier this week. Continue Reading “Packaging Trends: Key Findings from The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies Research”
Process Safety Management (PSM) is the OSHA standard that mandates employers identify, evaluate and control potentially hazardous activities, chemicals and components used in their processes.
While PSM audits are performed every three years, you should periodically perform self-audits to protect your facility from punitive measures from OSHA and, more importantly, to protect your employees from potentially catastrophic events that could lead to loss of life or property.
However, this isn’t a guide on performing self-audits (you can read more on that here).
Instead, we’re going to walk through a few PSM elements that you should pay special attention to while performing self-audits.
Continue Reading “3 Must-have PSM Elements to Prevent Dust Explosions and Other Disasters”A food processing operation requires more energy than some may realize. Unless you’re the plant owner paying the electricity bill, you might not have considered how much energy is needed to keep things running. Food production (agriculture, transportation, processing and handling) accounts for nearly 20% of all fossil fuel use in the United States, and 16% of that energy is used for food processing alone.
While utility costs are inevitable, there are strategies to make food and beverage plants more efficient and save money in the long run — though they often require an upfront investment. Energy savings are a long-term payback; it’s important to keep that in mind when building a plant or modifying a current one.
Continue Reading “5 Energy Conservation Strategies for Food and Beverage Plants”As the food processing industry continues to flourish, many manufacturers are faced with the need to increase capacity. Whether it’s adding a new process line, building an additional plant or expanding an existing facility, conducting a supply chain analysis in partnership with your design team can lead to better decision-making and more efficient capital expenditures.
Continue Reading “Why Your Expansion Plan Needs Supply Chain Modeling”
A fully integrated firm is one that offers process design, building and infrastructure design, and construction services all with in-house resources. Compare this with traditional methods that involve contracting a variety of vendors to handle these different elements of your project. Partnering with an integrated firm can benefit your next food or beverage project in a variety of ways. Continue Reading “[VIDEO] The Value of Working with a Fully Integrated Firm for Your Next Food or Beverage Project”
Signing on a new construction or renovation project presents an exciting time for food manufacturing owners ready to embark on the next stage of their business plan. A commissioning partner who uses a vertical start-up model can help ensure a smooth project handover.
Traditionally, commissioning occurs as construction nears completion when engineers begin installing and testing equipment to guarantee production lines will run properly. However, my experience is that waiting until the end to conduct system integration, simulations and automation can prolong start-up and cost owners valuable time, money and resources.
Applying best practices for commissioning and coordinating with owner equipment manufacturers (OEMs) early on can ensure facilities achieve full performance much faster and at a fraction of the cost compared to traditional methodologies.
Continue Reading “6 Ways Vertical Commissioning Can Benefit Your Next Food Facility Project”In last week’s post, I introduced you to the behavior-based approach to worker safety. While ergonomic design and regulatory compliance remain critical to worker safety, behavior-based safety strategies incentivize employees to take ownership of their own safety. Employees proactively identify potential hazards, helping prevent them from ever happening in the first place.
Below, I outline in more detail three reasons you should integrate a behavior-based approach into your food plant’s worker safety practices.
Continue Reading “Three Reasons to Consider a Behavior-based Approach to Worker Safety”
Do you give enough care and consideration to your food processing facility’s electrical equipment? As a senior electrical engineer for Stellar, I joined several of my peers in a discussion in this month’s Food Engineering article, “Electrical systems and components: The lifeblood of your facility,” on electrical safety, systems maintenance and more. In the article, I reviewed factors that impact your plant’s electrical well-being. Below I describe them in greater detail for Food for Thought’s readers: Continue Reading “3 Ways to Prevent Food Plant Electrical System Malfunctions”
Earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) linked contaminated salad kits to a multistate outbreak of Cyclospora that infected more than 700 people. In 2019, the culprit was contaminated fresh basil, triggering a recall by the exporting company.
But how do outbreaks like this happen? Knowing how to prevent Cyclospora from entering your food plant is critical for maintaining the safety of your products and the trust of your customers, especially during a time of heightened awareness surrounding sanitation and public health.
Continue Reading “Keeping Cyclospora at Bay in Your Food Processing Plant”
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