The U.S. Poultry & Egg Assn. (USPOULTRY) recently held its 2018 Poultry Protein & Fat Seminar in Nashville, Tenn., bringing together rendering professionals to discuss topics addressing areas such as peracetic acid and its effects on the rendering industry, product quality, new technologies, industry challenges and potential new end products containing poultry fat.

Gail Albertson, North Carolina transportation manager at Mountaire Farms, shared experiences on installing electronic logging systems and video cameras in trucks. Albertson explained that the cameras are not expensive and allow a company to see how well its drivers are performing. He suggested having someone on staff to monitor the truck videos.

“Our monitor was able see an accident one of our trucks was involved in shortly after it happened. The video allowed us to respond quickly. We were able to send the video from the truck to the state trooper’s vehicle while they were still on the scene of the accident. From the footage, our driver was able to be cleared of responsibility on the scene, saving us time and money in legal fees,” Albertson said.

During his presentation on “Oxidation & Its Challenges,” Dr. B.J. Bench, director of food safety and quality assurance for Tyson Foods, shared firsthand experience in dealing with oxidation of rendered products. Bench pointed out that oxidants are not all perfect, and there is no way to stop all potential reactions.

“When trying to understand oxidation, you look at seasonality, time, temperature, moisture and storage. Oxidation is somewhat of an arbitrary term. It is essentially a degradation process for handling rendered products. You see all kinds of chemistry phenomenon taking place that are different reactions, and it can be difficult to define in the matrixes that we deal with,” Bench explained.

Dr. Ansen Pond, director of quality assurance at Pilgrim’s Pride, discussed what renderers can expect from a Food & Drug Administration Food Safety Modernization Act inspection. He said while inspections are conducted by FDA officials, they will be contracted through state regulators. When inspections are contracted out, companies may run into some challenges, since the contracted inspectors may interpret laws a bit differently from FDA inspectors.

USPOULTRY represents the complete spectrum of today’s poultry industry, and its mission is to progressively serve member companies through research, education, communication and technical assistance. Founded in 1947, USPOULTRY is based in Tucker, Ga.