RGF Environmental Group has said the upgrade to its patent photohydroionization (PHI) Treatment System for meat processors offers 360-degree surface application and has been “hailed as a breakthrough” in the meat industry.
The system was designed for a high-quality meat processor – Valley Meats – based in the Coal Valley, Illinois, in the US. According to RGF, the 18-foot PHI Treatment Tunnel-Plus it installed in the factory is part of a solution for an industry facing continued safety challenges. It said this was a sanitary and safe food treatment system for pre-retail products.
A leading US food safety scientist, Dr James Marsden, dubbed the system as the “most effective state-of-the-art” system he had ever reviewed and said: “For the first time processors will be able to fully treat beef, which has tough angular surfaces and ridges.”
He explained that the PHI process also had the benefit of not impairing the taste or appearance of the meat it treated and said it was “totally unique” in its ability to treat the product surface. He also explained that PHI was an oxidation method to treat against microbial bacteria, which left no chemical residues.
RGF has installed many sanitation tunnels over the last 20 years in various parts of the food industry. It considers its PHI tunnel a breakthrough in food processing technology and said the PHI tunnels are retrofitted to depending on the type of product.
“The food tunnel can provide final non-chemical, anti-microbial treatment, and protect products from human error or other cross contamination events which may have occurred earlier during the process. The new modular treatment tunnel is mounted around a self-contained, variable speed conveyor, which is designed for the weight load, size and shape of the product volume to be treated,” it said.
Dr Marsden said: “This is an advantage when treating ground meats, since most meat contamination is on the surface, and the grinding operation mixes any surface contamination throughout the mixture.”