Tool helps Cargill monitor food safety practices at its beef plants.

Cargill began piloting a third-party, remote video auditing (RVA) program to monitor food safety practices at its beef facilities in Fresno, CA, and Milwaukee, WI. The company has already been using RVA to monitor animal welfare practices and is finishing up the installation of the technology at its 10 beef-harvest facilities in North America. Arrowsight Inc. of Mount Kisco, NY, provides the technology in collaboration with ADT Security Services of Boca Raton, FL.

By watching near real-time video, Arrowsight’s third-party auditors monitor how employees perform their work and provide constructive statistical feedback to plant management. According to Dr. Mike Siemens, Cargill leader – animal welfare and husbandry, the company has been able to use RVA in its animal welfare program to help increase an already superior compliance rate at its plants to an even higher level.

“We have observed healthy competition among plants on performance scores, as well as a general theme of collaboration among plants on how to attack specific operational challenges. The ability to share data and video is extremely valuable,” Siemens says.
For the food safety project, RVA will be used to review sanitation stages in the process such as how workers sanitize knives and other equipment. Cargill will apply RVA to monitor dressing procedures, to ensure proper techniques are followed to reduce the potential for E. coli and Salmonella contamination.