July 15, 1999 - Emmpak to Test Ground Beef Irradiation

by Bryan Salvage

Milwaukee-based Emmpak Foods Inc. announced that it has formed an irradiation alliance with San Diego-based Titan Corp. Specifically, the relationship will enable Emmpak Foods to further investigate using electron beam irradiation on ground beef and other processed meat products, according to an Emmpak news release.

Titan Corp. is building a new food irradiation facility in Sioux City, Iowa, which is expected to open in November. This irradiation operation is being built at a Cloverleaf Cold Storage Co. facility. Cloverleaf will provide refrigerated, Agriculture Department-approved food staging, storage and processing facilities and logical support for the electron-beam system. Omaha, Neb.-based APA Inc. will provide the architectural and engineering efforts to build this irradiation system.

"With this new alliance, Emmpak Foods will have the ability to ship processed meat products to the new plant in Iowa for electronic pasteurization with the irradiation process," said Tom Rourke, Emmpak's vice president of research and development. "The true value for our customers and Emmpak Foods is that we can research this new technology on larger-scale production volumes."

Emmpak Foods has been investigating e-beam irradiation on a pilot scale for several years, according to the company.

"By joining the other companies [IBP inc. and Excel Corp.] in this alliance, Emmpak Foods will continue to work toward effectively eliminating the threat of food-borne pathogens in ground beef," said Emmpak Foods CEO Justin Segel. "Emmpak Foods has had an ongoing commitment to food-safety initiatives. This new partnership keeps us on the forefront of food-safety technology."

Titan's Sioux City facility will be capable of processing more than 50 million pounds of ground beef or other meat products annually. Collectively, the companies in this alliance planning to irradiate ground meat at this new facility process about 75 percent of the 8 billion to 9 billion pounds of ground beef annually produced in the United States.

Emmpak Foods consists of four divisions and processes several lines of meats and deli meats under several brand names.

This article reprinted with permission from Meat Marketing & Technology.

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