ISO certification catapults Jac Pac ahead of the pack in terms of maintaining food safety and quality
by Bryan Salvage, editor
In May, Jac Pac Foods made history by becoming the first meat processor in the United States to be awarded ISO 9001 Certification.
Jac Pac's ISO 9001 Certification was authorized by the International Standards Organization, which devised this European-developed operations enhancement program to ensure quality standards in the manufacturing industry.
Achieving ISO certification is the latest in a steady string of food safety- and quality-related achievements for this Manchester, N.H.-based processor of portion-control food products.
"We have had a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point program established in our organization for the better part of a decade," says Irwin Muskat, president and owner of Jac Pac Foods. "We have been a total quality control plant since the early 1980s."
In October 1993, Jac Pac also opened the doors to a new Food Safety & Technology Center. Staffed by 19 people, the facility includes full scale USDA-certified microbiological and chemical labs and a pilot production facility.
Significance of ISO
James Marsden, former vice president of scientific and technical affairs for AMI, told Meat Marketing & Technology last year that ISO is much more than Total Quality Management.
"So often, TQM is just a philosophy," he said. "Nine times out of 10, TQM will fail because of that.
"ISO goes far beyond being a philosophy. It is objective, measurable and documented."
ISO has various designations; 9001 is the most comprehensive of all the series. Although businesses in the European Union and the Far East prefer using ISO-certified suppliers, Jac Pac's move into ISO was purely to further strengthen its food safety and quality procedures and commitment.
"ISO certification might give us another edge if we decide to go after the international market," says Muskat, whose company is already doing some business in Japan, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and Canada. "But from its inception, there was never an intent to have ISO be used as an international marketing tool.
"This certification formalizes a food safety and quality program that has been in place for years," he adds. "ISO 9001 gives our company a specific structure for assuring the quality and consistency we have always proudly offered our customers."
Dan Muskat, Irwin's son and Jac Pac's manager of information services, international sales manager and ISO 9001 management representative, adds: "Taking on the ISO project was difficult and laborious. Even though we had an excellent quality system before we started, tuning to the ISO spec was a project that was probably the best thing we have ever done.
"A lot of the quality steps [under ISO] we were already doing. But we now document what happens a lot better," Dan adds. "Now we can go back and review the built-in quality in our products and see how we're operating throughout the entire system. If we come across anything that is not of the proper written procedure, someone who knows quality must either sign off on it or stop the process."
A matter of fate?
Several years ago, Irwin Muskat was on a jet returning from a business trip when he struck up a conversation with the person seated next to him. That person was James O'Neil, president of National Quality Assurance, the company that ultimately certified Jac Pac for ISO 9001.
"I always try to get into a conversation with my seat partner," Muskat says. "[O'Neil] said he worked for an auditing function for ISO 9000. I told him I knew a little about ISO and that I wasn't sure if we were ready for it yet-but we were heading in that direction."
Muskat became further interested in ISO after his conversation with O'Neil. When he returned to his office, Muskat summoned one of his vice presidents who was brought on board to help lead the company into the 21st century with information management and methods to further enhance quality.
"What do you think?" Muskat asked the vice president about going after ISO certification.
"You have to be kidding," the vice president replied. "We aren't even close to being ready for ISO."
One year after that conversation, that same vice president came into Muskat's office and said: "I think we are ready for ISO."
Muskat adds: "I kept [O'Neil's] card on top of my desk since the day we met; I never moved it. After reaching him by phone, we set up a preliminary meeting. We had a bevy of ISO auditing firms that could have certified us, but we selected NQA because it had the best reputation."
It took Jac Pac only 11 months to become ISO certified.
"I've been told that is close to record time," Muskat says. "For some companies, the process can take years-and many companies drop out along the way."
He credits Jac Pac for accomplishing this achievement so quickly because it had already been practicing HACCP for years, and his family business had invested heavily in bringing in professionals to fill executive positions-and up to now, all have been non-family members.
Bob Smith, vice president of sales and marketing, was formerly head of sales and marketing for Pilgrim's Pride Corp. He has been with Jac Pac for seven months.
"The ISO standard simply substantiates that Jac Pac has always been a quality-oriented organization," Smith points out.
Monty Wooster, vice president of operations, was previously employed as vice president of processed meats for Cargill Inc. He has been with Jac Pac for about a year. He places high marks on Jac Pac's ISO certification.
"I hadn't heard of ISO 9001 when I was interviewing for my job at Jac Pac," Wooster says. "I came out of the Philip Crosby quality system, but the difference between Crosby and ISO is that ISO forces hourly workers to be involved. Jac Pac now has fewer quality managers and technicians on the floor, which forces the hourly workers to do their checks on a 15-minute or hourly basis.
"They [hourly workers] monitor themselves on the floor, and they do all of the quality and HACCP checks in food safety-which ties into the ISO 9001 program," he adds.
Roger Sheehy, corporate vice president of technical services and an 18-year Jac Pac veteran, says: "ISO is a commitment to continuous improvement. It's a damn good system. It's a big job, but I'll tell anyone who wants to undertake it that they're doing the right thing."
Irwin Muskat, who has spent his entire tenure attempting to bring about changes to inspire hourly workers to generate company and product quality, has high praises for his work force regarding the ISO project.
"You can't generate quality from the top down," he adds. "You must get hourly employees on the line doing the job to be quality control people. If you think quality control comes just from the efforts of the quality assurance department employees alone, you will fail."
Because the food safety and quality responsibilities of hourly employees have been further clarified and documented since ISO procedures have been instituted, Muskat has noticed increased worker enthusiasm. The workers were so upbeat about the prospects of ISO certification that everyone on the plant floor was totally prepared when questioned by ISO auditors.
"Auditors questioned our employees on the plant floor for 11 workdays throughout all the shifts on things such as their job functions and tasks; what training they have received; and about Jac Pac's quality statement, among other things," Dan Muskat says. "Not one hourly employee missed a single question."
Irwin Muskat adds: "If you give $6- and $7-an-hour employees an opportunity to do the job, they will do it."
Although Jac Pac executives point to Irwin Muskat as the company's ISO 9001 visionary, Muskat himself credits industrial engineer Carroll Gautreau as the "champion" of the ISO project.
"He took a hiatus for a year and spent 100 percent of his time spearheading the ISO 9001 project," Muskat notes. "Not only was he enthusiastic, Carroll generated enthusiasm. He took the ball and ran with it. He lined up the ISO classes [all employees attended]. He put together an executive steering committee to monitor what was going on."
Everyone must be committed to the ISO process if it is to work.
"If you aren't going to generate enthusiasm from the top, you're not going to make ISO," Muskat adds. "If there isn't a 100 percent commitment [from the CEO] to this program, you're a failure before you start. And members of our salaried pool of personnel spent 25 percent of their entire year on ISO 9001 and still got all of their other regular duties completed-and on time. Now that's a commitment."
Although Muskat is proud of his company's food safety and quality accomplishments over the years, the ISO project was humbling.
"It did point out company weaknesses in both our quality control and our organization," he admits. "But better than pointing them out, it gave us a method by which they could be improved and strengthened."
In order to further enhance its ISO and quality efforts, Jac Pac is in the process of installing Prism software, developed by Newton, Mass.-based Marcam Corp. This software will tie together all Jac Pac functions to create more integrated, efficient information processing. Specifically, it will help Jac Pac to deliver enhanced quality control, improved customer service, better inventory control, and more efficient space utilization.
"It's an integrated software package that covers every aspect of our business-manufacturing, accounting, shipping, and research and development," Dan says. "Once the system is hooked up, we will get everything from purchasing to sales activity on the same database."
This system will give the company tremendous abilities with its quality systems because employees will be able to access accurate and timely information from every aspect of the business conveniently from one database.
"It will give us great insights into areas like product traceability, yield information and productivity," Dan claims.
"If there ever is a problem with a product, we can get information on that product all the way back to that product's original raw materials."
Wooster adds: "Our previous software system on cost accounting was very slow in getting information, and it gave you tons of paperwork.
"A Prism system eliminates that paperwork and combines it into easy-to-read cost accounting expense categories. Prism allows you to design your own program right off your own PC," Wooster claims.
The change to Prism software will be in two phases. On July 31, Jac Pac "flipped the switch" to Prism for all operations except the production floor. Jac Pac executives hope to bring the production floor on-line by January.
Jac Pac's quest for quality also includes leadership skill training. The company collaborates with the College for Lifelong Learning, a college in the University System of New Hampshire, to provide ongoing, in-house training to teach leadership skills to its management and hourly staff. In the past, Jac Pac sent its employees to short courses on leadership skills, but the investment did not pay off.
"This [CLL] program is tailored to the individual; not a group," Irwin Muskat notes. "The program is designed around the strengths and weaknesses that each person has."
Although all of Jac Pac's quality investments are costly in terms of time and money, they are paying off.
"Anybody who doesn't think quality generates to the bottom line is very sadly mistaken," Muskat says. "Every time we have invested money into quality, we have received at least double the return."
He points out Jac Pac's five-point initiative to help it reach short- and long-term goals: "We have developed ISO 9001 as our quality structure; HACCP as the monitoring vehicle; Prism as the communication; the Center for Life Long Learning as the education-and this is enhanced by our investment in a very sophisticated technical services facility manned by 19 people.
"Seeing that Jac Pac is a 470-employee company, we probably have the largest technical services staff [based on percentage of total employees] of any meat company in the United States."
Any company in the meat industry is capable of being an ISO 9001 company, Muskat says. "But if they can't get to ISO, which has the principles of HACCP, at least get into HACCP," he points out.
Sheehy has a message for meat executives who are interested in learning more about ISO certification.
"We're very open. We encourage people to talk to us about ISO because we believe in it," he says. "We learned the hard way [being the first meat company to be ISO certified]. If you want help, give us a call."
Can we expect more meat companies to pursue ISO 9001 certification?
"I would suspect so," Smith says. "And for the sake of the industry as a whole, I hope so."
The evolution of Jac Pac Foods
1933: Granite State Packing Co. begins business in Manchester, N.H., as a single-man operation. Owner Alex Shapiro buys one animal, slaughters it, peddles the meat through the streets of Manchester, and then repeats the process.
Today, Jac Pac Foods is a wholly owned subsidiary of Granite State Packing. Irwin Muskat, Shapiro's grandson, is the current Jac Pac president and owner.
1940s and 1950s: By the early 1940s, Granite State is a full-fledged slaughter house, boning operation, canning factory and rendering plant. Growth continues through the 1950s.
1960s: The slaughtering industry moves to larger processing plants in the Midwest. Family members managing Granite State decide that the portion-control sector of the meat industry is best suited for growth. In 1968, Granite State purchases Jac Pac Foods, a portion-control company in Watertown, Mass. In business since the early 1940s, Jac Pac is selling less than $1 million of product a year in the late 1960s.
1968 to 1978: Under control of Granite State Packing Co., Jac Pac annual sales grow to about $30 million. In 1978, Granite State purchases Lovitt Foods, a small retail meat company in Providence, R.I. Lovitt processes specialty meat items and marinated meat. Lovitt is innovative in that it was known for processing specialty products out of less frequently used cuts of meat. The purchase of Lovitt Foods gives Jac Pac a start into the retail end of business, as well as the start of its Jac Pac line of marinated steaks.
In 1978, the company begins concentrating its efforts on what is today Jac Pac's specialty-the production of portion-control meat products. All slaughtering, boning, canning and rendering operations are discontinued.
1984: Jac Pac portion-control sales are about $100 million a year compared to less than $1 million in 1968. Jac Pac's largest account, York Steak House, is purchased by General Mills, which decides to buy all portion-control products from a Chicago-based processor. It means an overnight loss of 30 percent of Jac Pac's business. However, sales rebound by 1991 to a point exceeding 1984 figures.
1995: Jac Pac Foods evolves into a food engineering company and a full-line supplier of high-quality meat products.
Jac Pac file
Products: Jac Pac has three main operations: hamburger patty manufacturing, hand- and machine-cut steak manufacturing, and cooked meats.
Products include ground beef (patties and bulk); shaved steaks; pre-cut whole muscle steaks; marinated-injected steaks; fully cooked roast beef items; sliced beef products; pork loin and barbecue pork rib products; veal products; and meatballs.
The company also processes a small amount of pasta (chicken cacciatore) for a Connecticut-based company serving warehouse club stores. Jac Pac is processing chicken and tuna salad (without mayonnaise) for Dunkin Donuts, which are frozen and vacuum packed in smaller bags to prevent waste. The company is experimenting with a line of fresh, refrigerated entrees (including pot roast, meatballs and sauce, and meatloaf) in microwaveable trays with snap-on lids for the retail market.
Most products are delivered to customers in a frozen state; some are refrigerated.
Jac Pac can also make sauces and gravies to accompany its meat products.
Production Totals: An average of 1.65 million pounds a week. Of that total, about 70 percent is for ground beef patties. The balance of the business is roughly 400,000 pounds of roast beef products (including pre-cooked roast beef, sliced roast beef); a line of steak (marinated) and shaved steak items; and a meatball operation that produces about 100,000 pounds a week
About 70 percent of what Jac Pac processes is to customer specifications. About 85 percent of products are processed for the foodservice market.
Customers: Domestic-foodservice, wholesale warehouse club stores and retail grocery chains. Burger King is Jac Pac's largest customer. Other major customers include Subway (Jac Pac is the No. 1 approved roast beef supplier for Subway); Kraft; Sysco; PYA; JP Foodservice, Friendly's restaurants; The Ground Round; Elias Brothers; and Pizzeria Uno.
International-Ships steaks to Japan and also supplies roast beef for Japan's Subway franchisers; supplies product to accounts in Puerto Rico, the Bahamas and Canada.
Processing Plant: 140,000-square-foot total for processing of raw and cooked products.
Shifts: Two a day; six days a week.
Plant Highlights: Raw processing building has computerized work stations located throughout the plant floor to ensure quality processing-and to gain accurate and fast information tracking.
Jac Pac's ground meat batching operation includes a state-of-the-art bone removal system.
A quality assurance laboratory in raw processing building conducts analysis on incoming raw materials and finished products; also conducts cook tests to ensure customer specifications are met. Incoming raw materials are bar coded so product can be tracked throughout the entire processing system enabling the company to have total trackability of all finished goods back to the date of slaughter.
The cooked product processing area also has computerized workstations and is separated from the raw building by an enclosed bridge. A small, hand packing-style operation exists in the cooked building, which is testing portion-control, fresh entree products.
The new raw staging area features a number of raw meat cuts sized and individually processed to customer specifications. Pure protein slurry is injected into product for marination purposes. Injected raw material goes to a vacuum tumbler, marinade/tumbled to extract protein and gets a full injection enhancement through the raw material and muscle fiber. Very few Jac Pac products are not further enhanced.
A new computerized system was recently installed in the roast beef operation that tracks oven and product functions from within the oven. This program tells operators the affect of humidity in the ovens on the product, internal and external temperature changes and equipment malfunctions.
R&D Technical Center
Opened in October 1993. Roger Sheehy, corporate vice president of technical services, manages the facility. It houses 19 people-R&D and quality assurance.
The facility is used by Jac Pac to develop new products and test existing products-and for customers who are looking to design new products or to improve existing ones.
An R&D pilot lab is the heart of the center. Lab workers engineer prototype samples for customers and design process systems to bring them to production. Any operation in the plant can be duplicated and tested here, including packaging, flavor profiles and marination. Any product brought into the lab can be duplicated within 48 hours, the company claims.
The facility contains USDA-certified chemical and microbiological labs for internal testing and meeting customers specifications. About 700 to 800 product safety and quality tests are conducted weekly.
Quality assurance is responsible for ISO document control. A full-scale, on-premise restaurant is used for customer presentations and Jac Pac new-product cuttings. A modern showpiece executive conference center is used for customer meetings.
Company Firsts:
-- Jac Pac may possibly be the original purely portion-control meat company in the United States having started business in the early 1940s.
-- Jac Pac is the first American meat company to be awarded ISO 9001 certification-with 9001 being the most comprehensive of the series.
-- Jac Pac is the first meat company to utilize Marcam Prism software throughout its entire operation. This will tie together all company functions on one database to create more integrated, efficient information processing- from raw product arrival through to shipping and billing.
-- Jac Pac is the first meat company to develop and nationally market a marinated steak (the original Black Diamond brand); the first meat company with portion-controlled, pre-sliced roast beef; and the first company with pre-sliced portioned prime rib.