Processes and controls

Complying with the production specifications, which affect feed factories, breeding farms, artificial insemination centres, piglet production, feedlots, transportation and meat industry. Suppliers regulated on the basis of ISO 9001 standard.

Complying with legal demands and putting special emphasis on:

• Traceability of raw materials

• Product safety

• Permanent control of fatty acids present in the feed

• Balance of energy-protein of the formulae produced.

• Minimum percentage of inclusion of specific raw materials in the diets, especially in cereals.

• In reproduction operations
• Genetic selection: genetic lines are required wherein the quality of meat prevails over structure and sensibility to stress.
• In the feedlots the demands are based on:
  • Control of conditions of the water quality supplied to the animals
  • Traceability and keeping of records regarding the origin of the animals, feed, zoosanitary processing and medicated feed.
  • Identification of the animals by lots and items related to the origin.
  • Prohibition of medicine, both in feed as well as by injections, in the month prior to slaughtering the animal.
  • Special control of foreign objects.

• Use of authorised vehicle complying with regulations in force and with authorised driver
• Before transporting the pigs, it is indispensable to have the sanitary transfer document related to the identification of all the animals with the Nº Rega of the place of origin.
• Special compliance of the conditions of animal well-being during transport, such as animal density and driving conditions during loading, transportation and unloading.

• The process of slaughter and quartering complies with the regulations of:
  • Legislation in force
  • Various procedures of its own: application of the APPCC system, client auditing, ISO 9001 quality certifications and ISO 14001 of environment.
• Once in the slaughterhouse the control system is based on three elements:
  • Control of animal discharges.
  • Good operating practices regarding: stunning system with CO2 gun, bleeding process, scalding system by use of vapour…
  • Control of specific points in the slaughtering process (besides the inspection pre and post-mortem): control of water chlorination and pH, control of the temperature in scalding area, of the peeling machine and the air tunnel. Besides the activity and control of the veterinarians, a specific programme for identification of parasitic and respiratory problems is developed, analysing the canals by way of the Autofom system.

• Traceability in the slaughtering process begins with the controls performed at the moment when the pigs are unloaded.
• Assignment of lots for the identification of the animals to be slaughtered (for identifying the origin of the exploitation)
• Identification of the channels by means of slaughter No. (slaughtering order).
• Identification of the slaughter Lot assigned at the end of the slaughtering process of each channel.

With these three identifications the channels arrive to the air chamber. Subsequently and once the channels arrive at the quartering room, the slaughtering lots become the quartering lots.