While evaluating the conveyors during the decommission phase of a recent project, I was amazed at the variety of designs, belting, fabrication and, unfortunately, poor sanitary design.

The need for automation and robotics in cutting and deboning is becoming more necessary with labor challenges, but it is not as prevalent yet as the old adage “yields pay for labor.”

Creating and maintaining an efficient and safe meat and poultry processing environment demands a steadfast focus on employee training. Yet getting management to adequately invest in programs, and workers to effectively embrace the necessary procedures, does not come easily.

Nationally, deposits are growing at a much faster rate than new loans. This means banks have more cash than they can lend, and commercial loans are the fastest-growing category in banking.

Potential economic differences between current American fabrication specifications and Asian-inspired specifications are worth investigating as exports are a vital component to the American swine industry.

In this video series, The National Provisioner editor-in-chief Andy Hanacek discusses trends in the industry with Jorge Izquierdo of PMMI. This episode focuses on high pressure processing (HPP) and how the industry is using it to push into new product development.

Are meat and poultry processing jobs becoming safer? The numbers seem to suggest they are.

It was a tight race to the final day, but after the clock ticked to Aug. 1, 2017, and voting ended, Smithfield Foods’ hometown plant — the Smithfield, Va., processing facility — stood as the winner of The National Provisioner’s 2017 Plant of the Year award.

With spare parts inventory, the real problem is that essentially all spare parts inventory stocking problems are really forecasting problems.