Fresh pork occupies a unique, positive position in today’s retail meat case. Despite a tough economy and input costs that have spiraled upward for pork producers in 2011, the category is performing positively.

For only the fourth time in five decades, chicken production in 2012 will decline when compared with the previous year.

Tremendous progress has been made in providing consumers with food that is consistently safe. Credit for this success is shared among industry, innovators, researchers, public-health surveillance and regulators (yes, regulators most certainly deserve a piece of the credit).

New launch activity in ready-meals category addresses nutrition and quality trends.

Process Expo promises to be a new technology showcase for the entire food industry

Meat products enhanced through an injection process can have better taste and shelf life.

Packers and processors put safety and integrity of the product first. As such, that is the top priority of major slicing operations, and companies have many other key attributes to a well-sliced protein.

Economical and healthy options, as well as product quality and taste, allow the supermarket deli to remain an attractive destination for shoppers.

Two reasons supermarket delis were successful last year were because they were able to keep price increases manageable and they were able to innovate, says Jonna Parker, account services director at the Perishables Group, Chicago. For example, more retailers began offering bundling and combo options to create convenience.

Since environmental exposure is a major source of Listeria monocytogenes contamination on fully cooked ready-to-eat products, cook-in-the-bag processing has become very important. By not exposing the product to the environment between cooking and packaging, the chance of Lm contamination is eliminated, which reduces the need for some of the antimicrobial agents and the post-packaging pasteurization process to eliminate Lm on ready-to-eat meat products.