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Cargill has initiated a pilot study of third-party video monitoring called remote video auditing program within some of the company's packing plants. While the effort currently focuses on Cargill's North American beef plants, the overall effort is worth noting for all livestock and poultry entities as it has potential future application elsewhere, such as pork processing plants.

This newly expanded effort also will monitor food-safety procedures within the processing plants. Cargill already is using RVA to monitor animal well-being practices and is completing the technology installation at its 10 beef-harvest facilities in North America. Based on the positive results in the animal well-being area, Cargill officials decided to extend the RVA technology to monitor food-safety practices and is piloting that portion of the project at beef facilities in Fresno, Calif. and Milwaukee, Wis.  

Arrowsight, of Mount Kisco, N.Y., provides the technology in collaboration with ADT Security Services of Boca Raton, Fla.

“We are pleased that Cargill has elected to extend the RVA program into these important food-safety applications,” says Arrowsight Chief Executive Officer Adam Aronson.   

By watching near real-time video, Arrowsight’s third-party auditors monitor how consistently employees perform their work. It also provides constructive statistical feedback to plant management.

 “The early results with our animal welfare program have been terrific and we’re excited to get all the facilities up-and-running on the program,” says Mike Siemens, Cargill leader of animal welfare and husbandry.  “Cargill has been able to use the RVA technology to help increase an already superior compliance rate at its plants to an even higher level. In addition to the positive results on compliance rates, we have observed healthy competition among plants on performance scores, as well as a general theme of collaboration among plants on how to attack specific operational challenges. The ability to share data and video easily is extremely valuable.”

For the food-safety pilot, RVA will be used to review stages within the process where workers clean and sanitize their knives and other  equipment.  Additionally, Cargill will apply the technology to monitor dressing procedures to ensure proper techniques are followed to reduce the potential for E.coli and Salmonella contamination. 

“We’re working to eliminate the opportunity for cross-contamination,” says Angie Siemens, Cargill technical services vice president for food safety and quality. “We want to have the right steps at the beginning of our process to enhance the efficacy of our intervention technologies later in the process. The major objective of the video auditing application is to design a ground-breaking program that can further reduce the E.coli and Salmonella contamination.” 

Source: Cargill