Seaboard Foods, a leading pork processor, recently hosted a media tour of its Seaboard Triumph Foods processing facility in Sioux City, Iowa. The tour was followed by a question-and-answer session with company executives.
STF is a joint venture of Seaboard Foods and Triumph Foods.
Before entering the processing facility floor, those on the tour were required to put on hairnets, earplugs, smocks, boots and hardhats. No cellphones or recording devices were allowed on the floor.
The two tour groups were led by Randy Manteufel, CI specialist A shift, and Ben Chase, CI specialist B shift.
All products produced by the company’s three fresh pork processing plants – Seaboard Foods, Triumph Foods and Seaboard Triumph Foods – and the three Daily’s bacon plants are marketed and sold by Seaboard Foods. Fresh pork is sold under the Prairie Fresh brand, and some commodity and export products are sold under the Seaboard Foods brand along with the Prairie Fresh brand.
At the Sioux City STF plant, over 22,000 hogs are processed daily, totaling around 25 million pounds of pork weekly. About 120 truckloads of pork leave the facility each day.
The facility employs about 2,800 employees and is the largest employer in Sioux City.
Food safety is a priority, with various product contact and non-product contact areas swabbed daily, along with hourly sampling. Samples go to an on-site lab for testing.
Also, any trimmable defects found on the hog carcasses on the production line are identified and trimmed or tagged for further inspection. Three USDA inspectors are on the floor at all times, along with STF inspectors.
The facility processes and uses all parts of the hogs. This includes uses in pet food, casings and for pharmaceutical purposes.
Hogs are identified by a shoulder tattoo as they come into the plant and are assigned and tracked by ID numbers on the head and back of the carcass as they continue down the line for processing.
The process starts on the harvest floor, where carcasses are weighed on a hot scale, entered into a snap chill and transitioned into an equilibration bay until target processing temperatures are met. On the cold side, the carcasses are disassembled into main primal cuts, packaged and shipped.
STF customizes orders for its customers, meaning the production may change daily.
The processing floor is huge and a beehive of activity. Workers are stationed along the many lines, using automated equipment or hand tools to process the carcasses.
Boxes of product are either refrigerated or frozen. The facility has two large freezers, with product rotating out within seven days.
The Prairie Fresh Way
Seaboard Foods’ Prairie Fresh Way centers around the company’s connected food system.
According to David Eaheart, senior director of communications and brand marketing for Seaboard Foods, the connected food system comprises the three fresh pork processing plants and also the farms owned by Seaboard Foods, the five producer-owners of Triumph Foods and three Daily’s bacon processing facilities, which are jointly owned by Seaboard Foods and Triumph Foods.
“There’s a sense of pride in everyone that’s part of our connected food system and doing pork the right way,” Eaheart said. “We all have one common goal, and that’s to do pork the right way – the Prairie Fresh way.”
One of the company’s standout products is Prairie Fresh USA Prime.
“Prairie Fresh USA Prime is a trademarked brand name that represents the highest quality fresh pork produced by the connected food system,” Eaheart said. “Through proprietary technology and process at the plant, we select carcasses that meet our intramuscular scoring system.
“There is no fixed quota for products that meet the brand’s requirements for marbling, tenderness and juiciness, and the percentage of carcasses that qualify varies daily. “
The USDA does not have a grading system for pork as it does for beef, which is why Seaboard Foods developed an objective system to select its best pork products for the Prairie Fresh USA Prime brand.
“But we aren’t making any claims regarding grades as it relates to beef,” Eaheart added.
As a connected food system, the company collects data on the hog carcasses selected for Prairie Fresh USA Prime. The hogs can be traced back to the farm they came from and the feed programs in place.
Currently, about 10 percent of the hog carcasses are selected for the Prairie Fresh USA Prime program.
On the foodservice side, Eaheart said customer studies with barbecue restaurants using the Prairie Fresh USA Prime pork butts are showing higher cook yields and lower cook times. This helps validate the premium they are paying for the product.
On the retail side, it’s a matter of targeting the right customers who have the consumer base that understands the value of the product and the price that’s attached to it, he said.
“For our sales team, targeting the right customer who has the right consumer, that’s how we grow,” Eaheart said.
Exports play a significant role in Seaboard Triumph Foods’ business, accounting for 20-30 percent of total sales. The company ships products to various international markets, including China, Japan, Korea and Mexico. Factors such as trade policies and exchange rates influence export volumes.
Seaboard Foods has a team that focuses on international sales and markets, Eaheart said. Strategies are adapted to address changing conditions to ensure the company remains competitive in the global marketplace.
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Value added
Ozlem Worpel, VP of marketing, innovation, communication and sustainability for Seaboard Foods, said the company is looking to its value-added line for growth.
Plans call for introducing new flavors every year in the seasoned line. Prairie Fresh recently expanded its Signature line with the limited-time addition of a Hatch chile seasoned pork tenderloin. It will be available in select retail locations this fall.
Worpel said they look at what flavors are trending when developing new seasoned and marinated products. Consumers want quality, convenience and flavors.
“When we look at the consumer, it’s ready to cook, ready to eat. This is one of the reasons why, as a company, we’re looking at a three- to five-year plan … We need to do what the consumer wants and that’s more value-added items, more convenient items, different flavors,” she said.
Innovation
Seaboard Triumph Foods also invests in automation and technology to improve efficiency and product quality.
Frank Koekkoek, VP and general manager of STF, said the objective in using automation robotics is not necessarily displacing labor but transitioning employees to other locations to perform higher value tasks.
“That’s going to be a better ROI,” he said.
Koekkoek said STF is a “very strategic and strong company, which allows operationally for us to be innovative.”
As an example, he said STF was scheduled to install an MLR machine, manufactured by Marel. A leaf lard puller, it will be the first in the U.S.
“We went to Europe about two years ago, looked at the piece of equipment and engaged with Marel,” he said.
The two-cell device reduces upward of about 15 people, he said, noting that the jobs replaced are “tedious, hard jobs where there’s a lot of fatigue in the hands and wrists. We’re really focused on our people.”
Koekkoek said they also recently acquired a piece of equipment that grinds and separates bones, replacing an older device.
He noted that both Seaboard and Triumph allow them “the opportunity to be innovative and also allow us to take our team members and reallocate them to areas where it puts less stress on the body.”
STF is looking next at automation on the shipping side, to palletize boxes and store in a rack system.
As Seaboard Triumph Foods continues to grow and evolve, the company remains focused on its core values of quality, innovation and sustainability. By leveraging its connected food system and global reach, the company aims to continue to be a leader in the pork industry.
