In the food and beverage industry, there is nothing more important than quality and safety. The transportation and storage of meat are among the most highly regulated sectors because of the danger posed by the careless handling of meat. There are a number of disease-carrying pathogens found in raw meat, including Salmonella, Escherichia coli, Shigella, Staphylococcus, and more, which can cause serious illness if consumed. Such contamination may also lead to money lost by the food distributor, grocer, or restaurant if large quantities of meat must be thrown out. As one of the country’s prominent independent meat suppliers, iQ Foods understands this better than most. The company has deep experience in the science behind meat storage. iQ Foods is an expert at monitoring food color, bone color, and purge (water, lactic acid, and meat pigments.) The entire environment of a storage facility or vehicle must be specifically measured because meat management has many factors. If the temperature is off by even one-half of a degree, the quality and safety of the meat are compromised.
Addressing Productivity and Efficiency in the Storage Process
To ensure premium quality and safety of the company’s inventory, which is typically around more than $60 million worth of meat at one time, iQ Foods was required to manually measure its entire inventory frequently throughout the day. This process included having employees walk around the company’s storage facilities 15–20 times per day to manually check multiple temperature gauges inside and outside of a freezer/refrigerator and record the measurements. This process had many flaws, including time wasted and the inefficiency of employees having to manually check readings as well as human error, which includes missing a measurement cycle or misreading the gauges, leaving a refrigerator door open after reading a measurement, and other mishaps. All of these factors threatened the security and quality of iQ Foods’ inventory. It also made the required reporting of all measurements to quality inspection organizations and the grocers who purchase the meat more difficult. And while the company was disciplined in its manual measurement process, Brandon Lobaugh, president of iQ Foods, knew that there had to be a more efficient and secure solution.