Cargill has begun piloting a third party remote video auditing (RVA) programme as a food safety tool in its North American beef plants.

Cargill already is using RVA to monitor animal welfare practices and is finishing up the installation of the technology at its 10 beef-harvest facilities in North America. Based on the positive results in the animal welfare area, Cargill decided to extend the RVA technology to monitor food safety practices and is piloting the project at beef facilities in Fresno, California, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Arrowsight, Inc. of Mount Kisco, New York provides the technology in collaboration with ADT Security Services of Boca Raton, Florida.

By watching near real-time video, Arrowsight's third party auditors monitor how consistently employees perform their work and provide constructive statistical feedback to plant management.

Dr. Mike Siemens, Cargill leader - Animal Welfare and Husbandry, said, "In addition to the positive results on compliance rates, we have observed healthy competition among plants on performance scores, as well as a general theme of collaboration among plants on how to attack specific operational challenges. The ability to share data and video easily is extremely valuable."

For the food safety pilot, RVA will be used to review the stages in the process where workers clean and sanitise their knives and other pieces of equipment. Additionally, Cargill will apply the technology to monitor dressing procedures to ensure proper techniques are followed to reduce the potential for E.coli and Salmonella contamination.

Dr. Angie Siemens, Cargill vice president for Technical Services - Food Safety and Quality, said the major objective of the video auditing application is to design a ground-breaking programme that can further reduce the E.coli and Salmonella contamination.

Cargill is an international producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products and services.