Meat + Poultry - April 2009 - 34

VIDEO AUDITING

The ﬁrst installations are scheduled
for the company's regional beef plants in
Fresno, Calif., Milwaukee and Wyalusing,
Pa. Next on the list are the company's
fed-beef operations. Half of the Cargill
beef plants are scheduled to have cameras installed and systems running by

the end of June and the remaining ﬁve
by the end of the 2009 calendar year.
"By New Year's Eve, we hope to have
all 10 plants done," says Siemens
After the beef plants, the focus will
shift to Cargill's pork-slaughtering operations. "The intent is to roll it across

all the commodity species," Siemens
says. Meanwhile, the ﬁrm's pork division has and will continue using an
internal monitoring system of cameras
to evaluate and audit animal-welfare
practices
During the test, Cargill ofﬁcials
quickly saw value in the feedback the
technology provided, including trending data to inform plant operators
about animal-handling performance by
date, shifts or other criteria. Using the
American Meat Institute's animal welfare guidelines, Arrowsight auditors in
Huntsville, Ala. score Cargill's handling
practices using in-plant video footage
and a Web-based software program
created by Arrowsight.

"That data feedback
that we get back
in our plants really
helps us have some
uniformity between
plants."

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MEAT&POULTRY

April 2009

www.MEATPOULTRY.com

"The data feedback that we get back
in our plants really helps us have some
uniformity between plants," Siemens
says of the analyzed information provided by Arrowsight. "The data feedback
we get back from them we think will
be very meaningful in terms of helping
us improve what we are currently doing. Arrowsight met our expectations
and they were successful in delivering
what they said they could," Siemens
says. "Continued improvement is the
name of the game."
Prior to Cargill's announcement, ﬁve
plants were using Internet-based video
auditing systems. Three of the facilities
publicize their programs, including Delimax Veal, FPL Foods and American Beef
Packers (the new owner of the Hallmark/
Westland beef plant in Chino, Calif.).

Not camera shy
While undercover video footage of animal abuse has exposed what are decidedly isolated incidences of bad be-

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Meat + Poultry - April 2009

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