Efficiently removing hair and softening skin on carcasses during pork production, while also maintaining product quality, is a process that is ripe for miscues.

"Trying to slice bacon with a dull blade is like having a screen door on a submarine — in either case you are in trouble,” says Mike Bliss, vice president of operations at Butterball.

Quality is an accumulation of attributes that satisfy customer preferences and expectations. Customers’ needs and expectations are always changing.

As a meat scientist, I try to be precise in referring to beef cuts. But at the same time, I must be aware of the alternative names for those cuts which may have historical, regional or marketing significance.

Annual beef production is at an 18-year low, down 5.1% from one year ago.

To ensure water quality and safety under the Clean Water Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates the amount of various types of nutrients that can be discharged from point sources into nearby lakes, streams or reservoirs.

Process control is used extensively by the large meat companies to optimize processing, by maintaining process variables within a desired range.

Dissolved air flotation (DAF) systems can separate 95 to 99 percent of fats, oils and greases (FOG) and total suspended solids (TSS) from organic wastewater — thus, they are an important treatment option for meat-processing facilities.

AlaTrade Foods is a custom food processor that services large poultry processors requiring intensive amounts of labor in processes such as deboning.

Cooking, chilling and freezing systems are a necessary component of the post-harvest process.