WASHINGTON – As part of its Glass Walls series of videos promoting education and transparency in the meat and poultry processing industry, the North American Meat Institute (NAMI) has released a new video focused on food safety. The latest video, “Food Safety Interventions in the Meat Industry” is the 11^th in the series and provides an in-plant perspective of interventions and technologies used by processors to maximize safety and minimize risk in the production of meat and poultry products. The newest video features low-tech interventions such as hand and boot washing, hide and carcass washing on up to more sophisticated technologies, including high-pressure pasteurization and irradiation.

NAMI’s Senior Vice President of Public Affairs Janet Riley said the video gives viewers a real-world look at how the food they eat is produced as safely as possible using a combination of safeguards.

“Interventions are like hurdles erected to block potential problems. Hurdles help, but aren’t perfect, so meat companies use a series of them and each one makes it less likely a problem will cross the finish line where it could pose a risk to consumers,” Riley said. “This video shows many of the interventions used to give people a window into how their meat is safely produced.”

NAMI’s video series also includes tours of a variety of plants where livestock are used to produce food products for domestic and global consumption. They cover topics ranging from how specific categories of food are manufactured to the cleaning and sanitation steps used in plants each day. Riley pointed out that the safety of meat and poultry products produced in the US has never been greater.

“Food safety in the meat and poultry industry is a true success story,” said Riley. “USDA tests our products for pathogens every single day and incidence rates of bacteria such as E.coli O157:H7 and Listeria monocytogenes have declined drastically in recent years.”

The video is the 11th in the Meat Institute’s Glass Walls series. Other videos include tours of beef, pork, lamb and turkey plants featuring animal welfare expert Temple Grandin, PhD. Videos also cover how ground beef, bacon and hot dogs are made as well as how plants are cleaned daily.

All of the videos are available on the Meat News Network YouTube page.