 Food
Safety Solutions
No one cares more about the safety of U.S.
beef than America's one million cattle producers. Raising
safe beef is recognized by America’s beef producers
as an inherent responsibility. It is core to their livelihood.
And it’s their heritage. American beef is recognized
as the safest in the world. Along with quality and taste,
this is just one of the reasons why American beef continues
to be a consumer favorite in this country and abroad. Working
hand in hand together, we at Micro Beef Technologies have
devoted ourselves to helping the men and women of the beef
supply chain produce wholesome food products since 1971. Food
safety has been and will continue to be the number one priority
for all of us.
Rigorous standards along with the commitment
of beef producers everywhere ensure that American beef is
the safest, highest quality, and most wholesome of any in
the world. U.S. beef is one of the most heavily regulated
and stringently tested of all foods. Beef producers, allied
partners, and government health officials are all working
together to continually improve production practices and safety
protocols to protect the nation’s beef supply. The beef
management systems innovated by Micro Beef Technologies support
the industry and government to ensure the wholesomeness of
U.S. beef.
At Micro Beef Technologies, our core values
of honesty and integrity are reflected in everything we do.
The values of honesty and integrity are reflected not only
in our business practices and in human relationships, but
in our technologies, processes, and data as well. You can
trust that our processes are designed with food safety in
mind and that our technologies and the data produced by them
are precise and accurate.
Micro Beef’s core values underscore
our commitment to the social responsibility we have for the
world around us. Social responsibility begins with the end
in mind. Social responsibility includes employing acceptable
standards for proper animal handling and promoting the health
and well being of animals and the people who are responsible
for their care. These measures, combined with the responsible
use of therapeutic products and growth management programs,
compliment both the quality of life for the animal and the
industry. But more importantly, these measures ensure a safe
and wholesome consumer eating experience. Beef producers have
always recognized that commitments involving these criteria
are central to basic animal husbandry and the production of
quality beef products. We act on our sense of social responsibility
to the public by doing everything we can to provide a wholesome
product to consumers and by promoting the welfare of the animals
we help care for. And we partner with the beef supply chain
in fulfilling its objectives of satisfying consumer-based
social responsibility expectations.
The topic of animal disease and food safety
has become a front burner issue with the consuming public,
government agencies, and the beef industry since December
23, 2003 in which a single dairy cow in Washington state imported
from Canada tested positive for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy,
or BSE. (BSE is also known as “Mad Cow Disease”.
See www.bseinfo.org
for more information on BSE). Due to rigorous standards, no
infected parts of the animal entered the food supply. Scientists,
industry, and government officials agree that America’s
beef remains safe for consumers. America’s cattlemen
remain committed to continuing to produce the world’s
safest beef. Cattlemen are family farmers who produce beef
that is served not only on tables around the world, but to
their own families as well. Beef producers are beef consumers.
U.S. beef producers have worked with federal authorities for
years to develop science-based firewalls that are working
today to keep the food supply safe and to protect the brand
equity of American beef at home and in foreign markets.
Initiatives such as the 2002 Bio-Terrorism
Act, spurred by current events, have prompted increased awareness
to the importance of food safety. Among those initiatives
is a goal of 48-hour animal traceback for disease surveillance,
containment, and eradication purposes to protect America’s
food supply and to improve animal health and welfare. Increasing
speculation has been associated with efforts to provide the
industry a means to ensure 48-hour animal traceback in the
event of a suspected animal disease occurrence. Inherent in
the ability to effectively achieve the 48-hour traceback objective
is live animal tracking. This requires individual animal identification
and lifetime data tracking. A group of government and industry
representatives have been working for over three years to
develop a national animal identification plan. This group
developed the US Animal Identification Plan document which
has shaped the emerging National Animal Identification System
(www.aphis.usda.gov).
Micro Beef Technologies has been involved in shaping that
plan so that it is practical for producer implementation while
still achieving 48-hour traceback. The USAIP requires individual
animal data tracking for traceability purposes. Micro Beef
Technologies can implement traceability solutions for the
industry today that aid the 48-hour traceback process. MBT
offers a number of National Animal Identification System (NAIS)
compliance solutions that help producers in all types of operations
with varying technical capabilities achieve NAIS requirements
and build a framework for commercial individual animal management
and marketing opportunities. To learn more about how Micro
Beef's ACCU-TRAC National Animal identification and Beef Production
Management Systems aid producers, and food safety protocols,
click on the "Food Safety Solutions" button to the
left on the main navigation bar.
But data tracking and traceability —
both traceforward and traceback — are only one piece
of any food safety protocol. The most important component
is the implementation of food safety strategies.
This takes a “system’s approach.” From Hazard
Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans to Quality Assurance
to branded product programs, the implementation of food safety
practices and their validation is essential to the success
of any program. Implementation requires a well-thought strategy
with science-based standards. Implementation also requires
tools. And tools mean technology. From reporting and analysis
to production-environment processes, technology is critical
to ensuring food safety. This area is Micro Beef’s greatest
strength — helping producers build a food safety program
from the ground up with technologies that manage production
processes which implement food safety practices and that build
toward supply chain integration as one totally-integrated
system. That integrated system is composed of many technologies
employed in numerous areas of production. These technologies
do not just aid tracking and compliance issues. Equally important,
they yield economic benefits as well. Therefore, producers
have the best of both worlds — a food safety system
satisfying both consumer and governmental demands and a profitability
strategy with an ever-expanding growth path of technological
innovation combined with a complete system approach. Everyone
wins: the producer, government health officials, and the consuming
public. Micro Beef Technologies has practiced this approach
since 1971.
At Micro Beef Technologies, we recognize
that food safety is more than just a goal or a concept. It
is actions and processes. This begins with live animals on
one end and good food preparation practices on the other.
From clean counters and sterile utensils in your kitchen to
feed production and health treatments in a feed yard, food
safety happens everyday in specific locations with detailed
actions. Food safety happens when a rancher individually identifies
and records the origin of all his animals. Food safety happens
when you clean your kitchen counters in between handling different
foods. Food safety happens when chute-side animal health computers
prevent antibiotic residues in meat. Food safety happens in
processing facilities with sterile wash downs. Food safety
happens on your backyard grill when you cook hamburger to
a proper degree of doneness. Food safety happens in a feedyard
when micro feed ingredients are measured in precise technology-controlled
half-gram increments. Food safety happens in your kitchen
with the refrigerated thawing of meat. Food safety happens
with proper packaging and temperature-controlled product delivery.
Food safety happens with FDA, USDA, and local health department
inspections. Food safety is all of our responsibility. It
begins at the family farm and it ends at your family’s
table. From our families to your families, those of us at
Micro Beef want you to know that when it comes to "Food
Safety…It’s Our Business!" SM |
