Cargill and Hormel Announce Support for Industry Efforts

December 23, 2008 — 

Cargill Pork recently announced that the company would be adopting the USDA-approved Premises Identification Number (PIN) tags and Hormel Foods has endorsed the National Pork Board's PQA Plus and TQA Certification programs.

The USDA recently approved the first PIN tags, manufactured by Destron Fearing, for use in swine entering the harvest channels. Swine producers and veterinarians have been working with USDA to implement the industry's Swine ID Plan as part of the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). Approval of an official Swine Premises Tag was integral to the implementation of that plan.

The pink Swine Premises Tag carries the official U.S. shield, the assigned alpha-numeric seven character premises identification number and a notice stating "Unlawful to Remove". There is also space for producers to include a number to identify individual animals in a production system.

Hormel Foods has expressed the company's continued support of the swine industry by announcing that all hogs it purchases by Dec. 31, 2009, will be raised by pork producers and their employees who are certified in the PQA Plus^® program. In addition, the company now requires all producers, employees of producers and individuals who transport hogs to the company to have Transport Quality Assurance^® (TQA^®) certification.

Each site that is delivering hogs to Hormel Foods must achieve site status to provide hogs to the company. This process includes an on-farm assessment of care and well-being principles. These principles and food safety practices are also the focus during the educational and training session taught by a PQA Plus^® advisor.