Robert Pore's Ag Blog

Beef, it’s what’s for dinner. But it might be what’s for power if one Grand Island company has its way.

On Thursday, Swift & Co. and Environmental Power Corp., a renewable biofuels industry, agreed to build a renewable gas facility at Swift’s beef processing plant in Grand Island.

And if the plan is successful, it could be an energy-savings windfall for Swift, the world’s second-largest processor of fresh beef and pork products.

According to the agreement reached by Swift and Environmental Power Corp., an Environmental Power subsidiary, Microgy Inc., will construct, own and operate the gas production facility and sell its gas to Swift, according to a 15-year gas purchase agreement.

The gas production facility will consist of two 1.2-million-gallon digesters that will consume wastes generated by the Grand Island plant. The digesters will be able to produce up to 250,000 MMBTU per year. That’s the equivalent of about 1.8 million gallons of heating oil.

According to Microgy, the company holds the exclusive North American license to a proprietary European anaerobic digestion technology.

Anaerobic digestion is a biochemical process in which microbes break down organic material in an environment devoid of oxygen.

Within a digestion tank, Microgy said, wastes decompose over time into a variety of products, including biogas rich in methane or natural gas.

“This renewable-source gas can then be used for numerous applications, including the direct sale of biogas or pipeline-grade methane, for thermal energy or for the generation of electricity,” according to Microgy.

Other byproducts from the digestion process, including fertilizer, bedding and mulches, can be sold into their respective local markets.

According to Sean McHugh, Swift’s communication director, the biofuel plant will be the first of its kind for any fed-cattle facility in the nation.

He said the biofuel facility will replace 20 percent of the company’s natural gas demands.

The Grand Island Swift plant slaughters 5,600 head per day. The waste products that will be used to make natural gas come from the slaughtered animals’ paunch remains and other waste remains.

The paunch is the first division of the stomach of a ruminant animal, in which most food collects immediately after being swallowed and from which it is later returned to the mouth as cud for thorough chewing.

The other waste stream that will be converted will be both solid and semi-solid matter from the slaughter process that is washed off the floors of the slaughter facility.

According to Swift, engineering and permitting activities have begun, with construction expected to begin once the permitting process is completed.

By using wastes to generate power that Swift will use on site, the companies will reduce Swift’s dependence on fossil fuels, said Sam Rovit, Swift president and chief executive officer.

He said that at the same time, Swift will be able to reduce the volume of its plant processing byproducts.

“That will benefit the company, its community, and the state of Nebraska, in addition to benefiting from potential savings off of natural gas spot pricing, Rovit said.
He said the two companies will work closely to identify, evaluate and develop projects at Swift’s other North American beef and pork production facilities.

“The meat industry represents an additional market for our renewable gas facilities, providing opportunities to implement our modular and scalable systems for the cost-effective production of renewable gas,” said Rich Kessel, president and chief executive officer of Environmental Power.

Rovit said that announcement demonstrates “Swift’s ongoing commitment to our many stakeholders.”

“Our shareholders will benefit from a new cost-effective source of fuel, while the Grand Island community will benefit from reduced volumes of the natural byproducts associated with modern beef processing,” he said.

A University of Illinois food scientist has discovered that certain solutions used by meat processors to extend shelf life actually do double duty as antimicrobial agents, killing such virulent foodborne pathogens as E. coli 0157:H7.

That's important because E. coli can be spread via recycled solutions used to tenderize and enhance flavor in steaks, chops, and other cuts of meat, said U of I food science professor Susan Brewer.

The problem motivated Brewer and her graduate students to study the process used to inject meat with enhancement solutions before they're offered to consumers. And the results, published in the Journal of Food Science and Meat Science, have interested industry representatives.

"We wanted to find a point in the process at which we could exert some kind of control to keep foodborne pathogens from becoming a problem," said Brewer.

Brewer said that needle injection has been widely used for decades to tenderize meats, and more recently the fresh-meat industry has adopted the use of enhancement solutions, a practice that poultry and ham processors have used for years with very few problems.

"A certain amount of fat makes meat juicy and tasty, but in recent years consumers have been demanding leaner and leaner cuts of meat. Processors are now using the needles that tenderize steaks and chops to inject solutions that make the meat taste better and last longer," she said.

Picture a continuous end-line process in which needles inject cuts of meat with flavor boosters and shelf-life extenders. A basin catches fluid that goes through the meat or runs off the surface, and the solution is recycled into the system.

"With needle injection, organisms that exist on the outside of a piece of meat can get poked down into the meat where they're less likely to be killed if consumers like their meat on the rare side," said Brewer.

Also, as the needles inject one piece of meat after another, they can spread contamination from one piece of meat to another, and recycled enhancement solution can further complicate the spread of pathogens.

At this point, Brewer and her graduate students inserted themselves into the process to learn how contamination was likely to occur and how it could be controlled.

The scientists did two studies; in the first, they contaminated the surface of meat with E. coli K12, an indicator organism for its more dangerous relative, to observe the pathogen's progress as meat went through the system.

"We inoculated meat at various microbial loads, with some seriously nasty surface contamination on some pieces of meat," she said.

In the second study, they added E. coli K12 into the enhancement solution itself, experimenting with different components and combinations.

The scientists found that some solutions used to extend the shelf-life of meat also were effective at killing bacteria. "In certain solutions containing sodium lactate or sodium diacetate, bacteria cells couldn't grow and were substantially reduced. These shelf-life enhancers definitely work, and it really doesn't make any difference whether the steak itself or the solution is contaminated," Brewer said.

Brewer says the threat level for such meat cuts as chops, steaks, and roasts is not high, although ground meat not cooked to high temperatures can be dangerous. "You're always safe cooking red meat to 160 degrees, but if you have questions about food safety, check the USDA's Meat and Poultry Hotline at www.usda.gov," she said.

"The meat industry has been very proactive in attempting to prevent contamination of their products. They have an awful lot to lose if such an outbreak occurs," she said.

"But consumers should realize that the cook is the last point of control for eliminating these toxic organisms," she added.

"If meat is cooked until it's well done, you won't have a problem. These organisms are living cells, and they're fairly easily destroyed by heat, even E. coli 0157:H7," she said.