by Bryan Salvage, editor
High-tech pork production might be an expensive endeavor, but Premium Standard Farms' executives believe it will lead to better product and bigger profits. In fact, they say it is already paying off.
"We invest in standardized, high-tech pork production facilities," says Dennis Harms, president and co-chairman of the Princeton, Mo.-based company. "Those high-tech facilities yield good returns because they produce more consistent quality pigs-per-sow-per-year.
"The industry average on pigs-per-sow-per-year is about 14 or 15 pigs," he adds. "We get six or seven more pigs a year compared to the industry average."
Leading the charge
Gregg Bevier, senior vice president of production operations, is responsible for all pre-harvest operations-including milling, livestock, environmental aspects, security, trucking transportation for livestock and feed, and maintenance.
How does his operation differ from the industry norm?
"We have a closed standardized system," Bevier answers. "Easy flow [of information and material] within a vertically integrated business is a critical element for success."
Bevier is responsible for delivering 35,000 pigs of a certain quality each week to Premium Standard Foods, the firm's fresh pork processing arm.
"This means producing the same weight with no variations; and the same ham and loin sizes with no variations," he stresses. "Animal biology doesn't naturally flow to consistent quality or specific numbers. How we meet this demand is a critical part of what we do."
Advanced technology plays an important role in Premium Standard Farms' pre-harvest operation. One of its highlights is the genetic improvement facility, which is still under construction but near completion.
Premium Standard Farms claims it is operating the largest hog genetic improvement facility in the world.
"We're practicing 100 percent artificial insemination," Bevier notes. "Today, 95 percent of the hog industry is still using natural services. Artificial insemination allows you to leverage superior males. The average litter per sow is around 11.2 pigs."
Harms adds: "We're the only production firm that has capacity to drive 80,000 sows with 750 males. Under natural mating circumstances, it would take nearly 5,000 boars.
"This means we're using the best 10 percent to 12 percent of the male population and leveraging them against our sows," he says. "This might increase our lean yield at the plant by one or two percentage points. It will present a more acceptable line for export customers. And we can replace 300 to 400 males very quickly according to customer demand."
The air-conditioned facility is divided into three zones: livestock, laboratory and distribution.
The flooring in this, and all Premium Standard Farms' production facilities, is slatted to allow animal waste to pass quickly into flushing lanes below. These lanes are automatically flushed with 1,200 gallons of recycled lagoon water every two hours.
The flush carries animal waste to the drain and into the treatment and storage lagoon via underground piping. The lagoon collects and stores the liquid waste, which is ultimately used as high-quality, nutrient-rich fertilizer.
Genetics a key
Employees begin the day by showering before entering all Premium Standard Farms production facilities to prevent any possibility of cross-contamination of livestock. When the new genetic improvement facility is completed, it will house more than 20 employees.
"When it's done, we will produce 14,000 doses of semen a week," Bevier says. "Right now, we're doing about 10,000 a week."
Artificial insemination lends itself well to the standardized process Premium Standard Farms demands.
During artificial insemination, a collector will capture 7 ounces to 8 ounces of semen a boar. Containers of semen are then transferred by pneumatic tube to the lab in an adjacent room. The sperm is then examined, pre-diluted in a sterile liquid solution and placed in 5-liter containers.
Packaging machines in the laboratory make 3-ounce flexible plastic packages for the fertility mixture, which contain 4 billion sperm. A normal ejaculation contains 80 billion sperm.
The semen next goes into the order/packaging area awaiting orders. The mixture is agitated to ensure the sperm doesn't settle out and makes good contact with the media.
A similar facility is being built in Texas.
Once a female hog is in her estrus period, it will get three packages of the fertility mixture: one in the morning, one the same night and one the next morning.
Each package has a clip at one end that attaches to the sow's tail-and a long tube at the other end which is inserted inside the sow. As she moves about, the mixture naturally flows inside the sow at a rate she can accept.
"We have about 32 different [genetic] combinations today," Bevier points out. "I can tell you what the attribution of each combination is-including water holding capacity."
Since the plant in Milan, Mo., just opened, Premium Standard Farms is going through product rationalization to narrow the number [of genetic combinations] down, Bevier says.
John Stadler, president of Premium Stand Foods, adds that the company is at the tip of the genetic iceberg.
Unique production process
A single sow unit employs five people, and has five buildings, each with a special function: breeding, gestation, farrowing, nursery and an administrative office.
"They're bred through artificial insemination, and 40 days later they're pregnancy-checked with ultrasound," explains Charlie Arnot, director of communications and public affairs. "Then they go to the gestation barn where they're vaccinated against disease and put on a special gestation-period diet for 114 days.
"Forty-eight hours before they farrow, they get shampooed and move to the farrowing area," he adds. "They give birth to between nine and 12 piglets. Sows nurse the piglets for three weeks, and the sow returns to the breeding barn, gets bred again and the process starts over again."
Piglets are vaccinated against disease, and their canine teeth are clipped and tails docked. Males are castrated.
The 12-pound piglets then move to the nursery for seven weeks at which time they weigh 35 pounds to 45 pounds.
From there, they head to a Premium Stand Foods' grow/finish site, which is composed of eight buildings, each containing about 1,100 hogs.
Piglets gain about 1 pound to 1.5 pounds a day for 15 to 16 weeks until they reach a finished weight of 245 pounds. The sows are kept from two to three years-after providing from six to seven litters-before they go to processing.
Premium Standard Farms has built a number of fresh surface water ponds throughout the complex to keep its livestock watered.
The company has 16 different diets for starter, grower, finisher, developer, gestation, lactation and boar feed produced at two company mills. Diets are formulated to meet nutritional needs. Nutritional specifications are established on a linear program in order to determine a product mix. Corn and soybean meal are the most used feed ingredients in Missouri.
One of the mills can produce 3,500 tons of feed a week; the other can produce 2,200 tons of feed a day. At full production, the two mills will receive about 50 truckloads of corn and 16 truckloads of soybean meal daily.
To protect its sizable livestock investment when the farms are not staffed, Premium Standards Farms has implemented a Johnson Controls computerized system that monitors the controlled animal environment.
Alarms alert technicians to potential problems with heat, humidity, fans or waste systems at a control room in the Princeton headquarters.
The system provides "quantity" information needed to manage the facility (pounds of feed a day, gallons of water a day, equipment run time a month, etc.).
The system also assists with preventive maintenance by tracking the "run time" on various equipment and issuing preventive maintenance work orders, optimizing facility environmental control while decreasing energy costs and staffing requirements.
"We've simply adapted routine technology to agriculture-which has never been done before," Harms says. "This technology has been used in high-rise office buildings in New York to control room temperatures for the past 20 years.
"It lets us do our jobs better with fewer people, and it reduces costs while protecting animal quality and integrity," he adds.
HACCP
Collette Schultz Kaster, director of technical services, heads the company-wide Hazard Analysis And Critical Control Point program. Premium Standard Farms addresses HACCP at pre-harvest and post-harvest. Kaster is currently focusing on pre-harvest HACCP.
Bevier says: "So far, we've defined all of the critical control points within our system. We have specialized work groups. For example, in feed milling we created a HACCP program for salmonella analysis on incoming ingredients.
"If you look at a HACCP program, there are three areas being addressed: microbiological, physical and chemical areas," he adds. "Pre-harvest is focusing on the first two areas, post-harvest [the packing plant] is focusing on the microbiological area."
When animals are moved by truck at the pre-harvest stage, specially built vehicles with hydraulic lifts ensure maximum animal comfort by raising or lowering to a level plane against the barns. This ensures the hogs aren't stressed by having to walk up or down inclines.
Bevier pays regular visits to the processing plant for several reasons.
"I go to the processing plant once a week to check on deliveries, product quality and flow," he says.
"Water holding, pH and color scores are the three things we test for," he adds. "I check leanness in the product mostly because I can come back and affect that tomorrow through changes in rations."