Meat + Poultry - June 2006 - 47

Conveyors

Three P's of
conveyor systems
1. Prevention
* Have a HACCP-like decision team
comprised of key members of
sanitation, maintenance, production,
quality assurance and food safety
departments.
* Conduct an inspection at the
manufacturing plant prior to
commitment to buy the equipment to
ensure the equipment is the solution
you need.
* The most important feature should be
how cleanable the belt system is. Can
you get to all areas of the conveyor
system or will there be places that are
routinely missed.
* Assess the situation for intervention
technology.
* Antimicrobial sprays, spray bars, belt
brushes, etc. But make sure that the
intervention you use is not a cure
for a symptom of a problem that is
happening earlier in the production
process.

2. Protection
* Make sure that the conveyor system
is protected from any hazards above
the belt.
* Make sure that the conveyor system
is not causing problems below the
new belt.
* Protect your people.
* Make sure that access for cleaning does
not cause an employee safety concern.

Auditing observations
"Sanitation has always been a challenge when we go into plants and do
preoperational inspections or food safety and quality audits," says Jeff Chilton,
president of Chilton Consulting Group,
based in Rocky Face, Ga.
He says some of better conveying
systems in the industry are equipped
with automated spraying systems, but
such systems are not yet the norm. Most
new plants take advantage of these systems, and a growing number of older
facilities are adding them to their conveyors. He adds that some facilities, especially poultry processing plants, are
filled with mazes of conveyors, which
can lead to food safety issues in areas
that are challenging to reach and hard
to clean. "Frequently we'll see conveyors that are 12 or 15 feet off of the floor
or less than five feet from the ceiling,"
Chilton says.
Location matters for proper sanitation and inspection of conveyors. Inspecting an especially high conveyor
properly requires someone climbing a
ladder and using a flashlight to check
less-than-obvious areas. "Truthfully,
most plants don't take time to do that
thoroughly," he says.
But thanks to better designed conveying belts and rolling systems, the more
difficult areas to access are being elim-

3. Production
* Make sure that the design is efficient.
* Efficient design ensures workers are
less likely to cut corners that work
against food and employee safety.
* Make sure the belt flow does not cause
cross-contamination issues.
* Make sure equipment is designed to
handle the load of production for your
operation.
* Do not assume a belting solution that
has worked for another plant will work
for you. Tailor the solution to your
situation.
(Source: Food Safety Net Services)

MEAT&POULTRY

June 2006

www.MEATPOULTRY.com

Adding conveyors into the cut-up and trim
line gives valuable processing flexibility to
Koch's Turkey Farms, which recently added
ground turkey to its offerings.

inated and inspection is made easier.
Couple that with food safety enhancements made possible by automatic inline spraying systems and Chilton says
quantifiable improvements are being
made in processing plants.
Go with the flow
Product flow is another challenge facing processors as it relates to conveying systems. A common problem Chilton sees is the existence of catch points
along the conveying system, where
products often get stuck. If a carcass
going down the line is being cut and
sorted into six or eight pieces, "a lot of
times when we do the audits we'll see
product that's basically 'hung up' in the
conveyors instead of flowing through
the process and going to the box like it
should," Chilton says. "This is one of
the biggest problems we see."
A trapped piece of meat can create
cross-contamination issues, because

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Meat + Poultry - June 2006

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