Touring a Food Industry Plant

Touring a Food Industry Plant 

 

In today's world, one of the most common questions people have is how food is made. One of the big things people want to see is a food industry plant. They want to see how it is made and how it compares to their perceptions of the food industry.

When giving a facility tour here we start off with a three part briefing. First, is a brief history of the plant itself. A great example that Cargill is proud to always mention is that the plant is a newly renovated facility that has switched from producing hamburger patties to a series of four main lines, which are all relatively brand new.  In fact the plant has only just restarted production for less than a year. What makes this so cool is that the plant transitioned from a Raw to Ready to Cook Facility to a Raw to Ready to Eat Facility. What this means is that all of the products produced go through a cook step and a chill step. This ensures that every product that leaves the plant is safe. 

What does this mean for the plant?

Well it changes a lot. First it changes the Food Safety Aspect of the plant (part two of the briefing). Now there are four separate parts to the plant each separated and each regulating how you get from one part to the other.  Think of it this way, you don't want someone that touches raw meat touching product that just got done cooking right? (answer: yes) Its the same thing here in a food industry plant. So if you go into a food industry building for a tour you get to put on some lovely clothing called:
 boots (clean in bright colors indicating where in the plant they can be worn)
 frocks (the most fashionable part of any food industry outfit - you can't go anywhere in the plant without it)
 hairnets (look great on both guys and gals)
 and beard nets (for those that think its no shave November, year round).
And with this combined with the ever important personal protective gear of a helmet, safety glasses (think about that apple AEE 349), and ear protection you are ready to begin the tour after the final part which is a personal safety talk.

 

 Starting Point in a Tour

Usually you will start in the Ready to Eat or post cook steps in a facility.  This is because you would gather have people carry anything from the cook plant into the raw side and not the other way around.  I like to think of it like a stream you want product to flow down it but people to flow up it. Note of caution most RTE areas are regulated by temperature to be below microbial growth temperatures so it will be cold.

Most likely what you will see here are freezers, product going into packages, packages being sealed, and packages going into the shipping area.  The main goal on this side of the plant is that the product is sealed correctly and will not open unless forced open.  This room will also be considered a clean room and may require you to done more protective clothing such as disposable plastic frocks, disposable plastic gloves, etc. etc.

These rooms are really cool to see in my opinion because these rooms let you see the finished product and better understand things such as how it gets into the packaging.  It is often neat to see how the industry makes all of the different products and the many different ways they get into their respective containers.

From this room often the next step is to the raw side of the plant. This includes for the meat industry where products are grounded up, formed, and cooked.  Basically this is from where the product comes in up to the absolute last point where a product can be that is still considered "Raw".  What is cool about this part of the plant will most likely be the size of everything.  For example when you get buy a pack of hotdogs its pretty amazing to think that those hot dogs were part of a 8,000 pound batch produced at once. That is what makes the food industry so cool in my mind.

After touring these two parts the tour may also include the shipping and receiving portions of a plant but these parts are just storage areas for raw and cooked product coming into and leaving the plant. So most tours skip these parts. They are important for the product but often they are not as interesting as the rest of the process.

One of my cool responsibilities this summer was to help out with some of the tours.

This was cool because it got me a chance to really get to realize how interesting a food plant actually is.  When giving a tour its like we are showing a live viewing of a "How It's Made" episode.  As a result of this plant being brand new, this plant has also become a plant which gets viewed often.  So when they redesigned this plant they created a really cool hallway on the second floor. One of the production supervisors joking calls it the Grey Hallway and I think it is going to stick.  The hall way run straight through the plant and allows the facility to give tours, without having people walk through the plant.  This hall way has windows and TV Monitors which allow tours to view, ask questions, and learn without congesting the floor.  Now if its a smaller tour or if its a tour which has high value individuals in it (Governors or CEOs for example) we will walk with them on the plant floor.

What is cool about the plant is how large scale it is. People love watching the hot dog lines running or the forming of patties, why because its in just such a larger scale than what may be done at home.  I remember making this kind of stuff in the food science lab but here in the industry it makes that look sooo small.  I think its pretty cool which is why I think I am going to incorporate food industry tours in my food science classes I teach as an Ag Teacher.  Its a great way to make students see some of the bigger pictures of the things they could experience in the class room. It shows students how major lessons which are simple in concept in the classroom can be expanded to increase volume and efficiencies in the real world.

Spending a summer in the Food Industry I have begun to see some of the importance of letting students actually experience what they study. I hope to use these lessons in the future.

To Be Continued . . .