PET Food Processing - December 2018 - 24

PLANT PROFILE

Left: The seven
packaging lines at
Hampshire run
package sizes from
2 oz. to 20 lbs.
Right: Hampshire has
learned and adapted
as trends have
changed from wheat
based to no corn,
no wheat, no soy to
grain-free and highprotein formulas.

ongoing and consistent. Hampshire has added a new online
training database from Alchemy Systems, Austin, Texas.
"Human safety is paramount in any manufacturing facility, but we really take it seriously," Larson says. "We work
with a safety consultant, conduct safety training and have
safety teams made up of associates who conduct audits
and tell us if there are any issues that need to be addressed
or corrected."
Engaged and well-trained employees are critical to
effective quality assurance and food safety programs.
When Hampshire began in 2001, the company modeled its robust quality program after a customer's program and slowly melded it with its food safety program.
Hampshire became SQF certified level 2 for food safety
in 2009 and has maintained that certification since then.
Dunlop says SQF certification changed the way the company looked at the business from the food safety side.
"Our quality and food safety program is risk-based now,"
Dunlop explains. "We identify any opportunity where
product could be contaminated or adulterated. That's
what drives our monitoring activities and we continually
work to narrow the operating range as close as we can to
get the risk down to the lowest possible level."
As part of the company's quality and food safety program, Hampshire recently started utilizing a system to
help the company move from art to science in the baking arena. With the SKALA system from Meter Group,
Pullman, Washington, Hampshire is working to quantify
and digitize the baking process to predict the outcome
of each batch based on the initial inputs with the goal
of giving operators the tools to quickly identify when
action is required.

PET FOOD PROCESSING | December 2018 | www.petfoodprocessing.net

"We picked key processing indicators - water, temperature, water activity, moisture - and, using these
indicators, the SKALA system will write algorithms
for us to predict the batch outcome," Dunlop explains.
"We collect data at four points in the process and
hopefully over time we will collect enough data to
predict the outcome based on initial tests. We believe this will have a huge impact on our business and
improve our ability to make it right the first time."
Hampshire expects the new data being collected will
help identify the opportunity for gains in efficiency
and opportunities for innovation as well. "It's a huge
opportunity for us to learn a lot more about our systems," Dunlop says.
The spirit of innovation runs deep at Hampshire, but
Larson says the company's success depends on it. "The
spirit of innovation is not just strictly on the side of product development and product creation, it's also on the
manufacturing process as well. It's spread through all the
different departments and looking for new and different
ways to meet our customers' needs because, when you're
a treat manufacturer, you're not doing a full feeding diet,
you're not running long runs of the same diets week
after week. When you have a portfolio of so many customers, it's a very wide product base and they require
us to be flexible. Customers change their treats often to
keep them new and fresh. We've got to be flexible in our
product offerings and we also must be looking ahead.
While this is successful today, we need to continually
be focusing on what is going to be successful for this
customer tomorrow and having options for them to
choose from so that they keep coming to us."
PFP

http://www.petfoodprocessing.net

PET Food Processing - December 2018

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