In the meat and poultry business, food hygiene and product safety are always top of your agenda, from when product arrives to it leaving prepped and packed and ready for your customers’ kitchens. Not only does non-compliance with regulations put the end consumer’s health at risk, the risk to your operations, finances and reputation of a food safety fail is huge.

You’ll have handling processes in place, your team trained and your paperwork straight, but could your packaging equipment introduce risks you might not have considered? This guide will help you feel clear on where challenges may arise, and what to do to keep your product safe and your operations running efficiently.

What the law says about packaging meat and poultry

If you work with meat and poultry, you’ll be well-versed in Regulation (EC) 852/2004, a criminal law with stiff consequences for food producers who fail to apply its principles. Food business operators also need to apply food safety management systems based on the Codex principles of Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP). 

On top of the stringent storage, preparation and management guidelines set out to safely prepare raw and cooked meat and poultry for the end consumer, there are strict rules on how to ensure your packaging practices and equipment keep safety and hygiene top of the agenda.

Business operators need to ensure that all equipment is suitable for the job and is safe and hygienic to use. All parts of the equipment should be accessible for cleaning and if it needs to be dismantled for cleaning, this should be easy and safe to do. 

Maintenance and repair of equipment is vital to ensure that it works effectively and efficiently and does not cause a physical contamination risk. So, if you’re starting your meat and poultry operations from scratch, or looking to upgrade your existing equipment, it’s important to choose wisely to ensure that you have an affordable and reliable maintenance package in place, and that your chosen machinery enables easy and deep cleaning.

What’s coming that could affect meat and poultry packaging?

Under the UK government’s Extended Producer Responsibility Scheme (EPR), UK organisations that supply or import packaging are asked to collect data on their packaging use, which is linked to financial penalties. 

While many food producers are already moving their products to more recyclable packaging – for example, moving to fully flow wrapped whole chickens and laminated paper flow wrap for sausages – there are still many packagers needing to up their efforts, making the shift to new substrates, processes and equipment to address the coming financial burden on their businesses.

CASE STUDY: Packaging changes lead to reduced issues with food poisoning from chicken

While whole chickens had been packaged in trays with a film wrap for years, an increasing number of cases of food poisoning linked to campylobacter – a bacteria found on raw chicken that dissipates after cooking – forced food producers to think again. An increase in whole chickens packed in flow wrap only, a format less prone to bursting and leaking on handling, and roast in the bag whole chickens has – along with better consumer education – reduced the percentage of packaging with campylobacter on the outside to seven per cent.

Five questions to ask to source packaging equipment that can prevent contamination 

If you’re looking to install new meat and poultry packaging equipment, there are five key areas you’ll need to consider when making a choice.

#1. How ergonomic is the design?

The simpler the design, the fewer places there are for bacteria and microbes to gather, and the easier your machine is to clean. Look at welding joints in particular – the more places your machine is welded, the more places there are for water, dust and bacteria to collect.

#2. Does it have an IP69 rating?

IP is short for ‘ingress prevention’, in other words, how difficult it is for dust and water in enter the machinery. IP69 is the highest IP rating, with 6 relating to dust and 9 to high-pressure water. This not only keeps it clean during operation, it also means the machinery can be cleaned with highly pressured water without risk of ingress.

#3. Can it be quickly stripped down and reassembled?

In food production, time is money so the less time you spend on stripping down machinery for repairs or cleaning, the better. Make sure you research how easy your new machinery is and how it’s done, or work with a partner that can work with you to manage strip downs within timescales that work for your business.

#4. How easy is it to remove conveyor belts for cleaning?

Being able to quickly remove and clean your conveyor belts allows you to switch products quickly and easily with the need to call in the experts. Redpack inspection equipment comes with conveyor belts that can be removed without tools so that your teams can strip belts and clean them and get production back up to speed in no time.

#5. What level of automation does it have?

While many models of meat and poultry packaging machinery need manual intervention to switch modes, more modern kit can do the hard work for you. Many of Redpack’s machines now come with menus to allow you to quickly switch setups between products, allowing you to shift production with minimal slow down. Ready to talk about how you can make your meat and poultry packaging operations as hygienic and safe as possible? Get in touch with the experts at Redpack now.