The Video Advantage

Plumrose’s plants received a recipe checklist for pickle-juice preparation outlining requisite ingredients, amounts delivered, productivity and profits, as the wrong recipe can result in several hours of wasted manpower, and several thousand pounds of wasted meat.

“With reporting cycles running daily, weekly and monthly, managers can check progress at any given point and compare productivity between reporting periods,” says Arnold Mikelberg, former president of both ConAgra Refrigerated Food’s Specialty Processed Meat division and Armour Swift-Eckrich. “The technology not only maintains best practices, it makes better businesses.”

Giant Step

Between measuring performance and marketing the findings, the service marks a big step forward for the industry.

“RVA is a big step forward in animal welfare and animal handling practices as we can manage the areas we measure,” says Dr. Temple Grandin, owner of Grandin Livestock Handling systems, an advocate in animal welfare and animal handling practices. If you don’t measure something, it tends to slide back bad-with and you don’t even realize it is happening.”

Instead once a year, Grandin continued, snapshots are provided year round. RVA’s “sweet-spot,” she adds, appears to be high-level auditing matched with low-level interference with business operations. By looking through RVA’s lens, processors are provided both a picture of current plant operations and a glimpse into the future of food processing. The processors embracing this new technology are setting new safety precedents and pioneering a new marketing model.

Christina Kerley is a marketing specialist based in New York City.