ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Friday, November 29, 1996              TAG: 9611290098
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: B10  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER

THE SAME SANITARY PROCESSES, BUT WITH ADDITIONAL PAPERWORK

Three processors in the Roanoke region say they already practice newly mandated meat-safety techniques, but will increase reporting using new government forms.

For Valleydale Foods Inc. in Salem, the most sweeping meat industry rules in 90 years boil down to the filing of more paperwork.

"The biggest thing is record keeping," said Bill Weisgerber, plant manager. "It's going to add cost to the product, because we have to hire people or assign people who are specifically responsible for documenting and keeping records." One additional position will be needed, he said.

Each day, workers use chemicals to scrub equipment used to process smoked sausage, ham and bacon from meat slaughtered elsewhere. Workers also sanitize the machinery daily, using separate applications of ammonia and chlorine solutions. Other guards against bacteria at Valleydale are the cooking and curing steps to which meat is subjected.

After the rules kick in, "what you say you do you have to do and you have to prove it," Weisgerber said.

At the Bedford plant of Bunker Hill Foods Inc., the general manager said he, too, is developing checkoff sheets and sharpening pencils to fill them out.

"We felt that we kept our plant sanitary. It's just an extra burden of paperwork," Pete Peterson said. At his facility, crews make beef stew, corned beef hash, chili with beans - using meat slaughtered elsewhere - and package the entrees in cans and jars.

Mark Gwin, who with two partners has owned the former Nance Meat Processing in Moneta since August, said the new policies are a good idea. Their introduction also gives his small company more to do at a time when it is getting off the ground.

The business, now M/S Technologies Inc., processes meat slaughtered elsewhere into specialty products such as bacon-wrapped filet mignon and sells the items to retailers and food service companies regionally.

The eight-employee company, created to buy Nance, expects to devote 10 hours per week to the coming paperwork requirement, Gwin said.

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