Refrigeration Units And Cold Storage Plants

To create transitional storage facilities for crops from vegetable and fruit production and for products of the processing industry prior to usage, AGRQINVEST offers to design and construct up-to-date, purpose-built cold storage and deep freezing facilities.

Our firm, relying on its long-time experiences in many countries of Asia, Europe and Africa, has built cold and freeze storage units. The refrigeration techniques we recommend are as follows: freezing chambers, tunnel-system freezers, spiral-system freezers.

Our activity comprises material handling and storage systems too within the cold storage facilities.

The activities by AGROINVEST in the fields associated with modern, hygienic and profitably operating plants are as follows: preparation of study plans (feasibility), consultancy, technical extension service, planning, designing, turn-key implementation of projects, reconstructions, training of specialists, start-up operation and organization.

Irradiated Food? We Should Clean Up Food Processing Plants Instead

Is the cure worse than the disease? An old cliché perhaps, but it seems a particularly apt question in the current debate over food irradiation.

Irradiation may appear to many as a miracle means of swiftly removing bacteria from food supplies, but underneath the hype lie major questions about the economic, health, and social costs of the process.

Before these questions were answered, the Food and Drug Administration under the Clinton Administration loosened irradiation-labeling rules, lowered scientific standards the food industry has to meet and abbreviated its review of irradiation requests. Concerns about the wholesomeness of the irradiated food expressed by consumer and environmental groups were bluntly dismissed by FDA. Not a single request for a hearing on the implementation of a food irradiation rule has ever been granted.

The irradiation craze has reduced the focus on cleaning up food processing plants. Instead of improving the filthy conditions endemic to factory-style slaughterhouses, food industry executives and government officials are embracing an under­studied technology to prevent food-borne bacteria from sickening people.

Irradiation does nothing to remove the sources of many harmful bacteria - the feces, urine, pus, and vomit often left on beef, chicken, and lamb as a result of dirty slaughterhouse conditions.

Dozens of research studies conducted over the past half century have shown that food exposed to radiation can cause serious health problems in laboratory animals, resulting in shorter life spans, chromosomal abnormalities, low birth weight, immune and reproductive system problems, organ damage and tumors.

We do know that irradiation destroys essential vitamins and nutrients in food, including substantial percentages of vitamin A in eggs and beta-carotene in orange juice. Irradiation kills not only "bad" microorganisms, but also the "good" ones, such as yeasts and molds that keep botulism at bay. Irradiation might also spawn mutant forms of E.coli,, salmonella, staphylococcus, and other bacteria.

If the irradiated food is not dangerous enough, the facilities where food is exposed to radiation provide even more cause for alarm.

Between 1974 and 1989 alone, 45 accidents and violations were recorded at U.S. irradiation plants, including those used to sterilize medical supplies. In one mishap, water laced with radioactive cobalt-60 was flushed down the public sewer system in Dover, New Jersey, in 1982.

With all these dangers, why has the U.S. government legalized irradiation with so little study? And why did the FDA rely on only seven of the more than 400 scientific studies to determine that irradiated food is safe for human consumption?

One answer might be found in the political muscle of the $460-billion food processing industry led by the National Food Processors Association and numerous allied groups. It is not an industry whose wishes are often ignored by official Washington.

But citizens can provide a countervailing force. We need to start demanding that our elected representatives raise questions with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the FDA about this irradiation craze.

We need to insist on full study of the dangers as well as the benefits. And long overdue are demands for a cleanup of food processing plants. Irradiation isn't the answer. Stricter standards vigorously enforced can make food safer and healthier without turning to unproven and dangerous technology lacking basic safeguards.

Abstract

This paper presents a model-based approach for competitive analysis of manufacturing plants in the U. S. food processing industry. As part of this approach, plant competitiveness is measured using Operational Competitiveness Ratings Analysis (OCRA) -- a new non-parametric method of computing relative inefficiency. Drivers of competitiveness are identified in terms of policies related to plant structure and infrastructure. Policies related to plant structure are those decisions that are related with "bricks and mortar" and have long term implications, such as decisions related to plant size and capacity. Policies related to plant infrastructure are decisions related to how the " bricks and mortar" are used. These policies are typically under the direct control of the operations managers and have a short-term orientation, such as decisions related to equipment, quality, inventory, workforce and confusion-engendering activities (e.g. new product introductions and product variety). The empirical analysis is based on detailed cross-sectional data on 20 processed food manufacturing plants. With respect to plant structure, the results suggest that small sized food processing plants are competitive, and both capacity underutilization and overutilization are detrimental to plant competitiveness. Among the significant results with respect to plant infrastructure, equipment maintenance, quality management programs, packaging supplies inventory, workforce training and product variety are positively associated with plant competitiveness. The results also suggest that introduction of new products disrupts plant operations, at least in the short run, and is negatively associated with plant competitiveness.