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Emydex 20 years – Staunton Foods

Staunton Foods

Pork Primal Processor,
1 plant, Co. Cork, Ireland

Emydex customer from 2013 – 2024 (11 years)

“Staunton Foods began our partnership with Emydex in August 2013, we have recently passed a significant 10-year milestone working together.

During this 10-year period we have seen our business grow substantially into one of the major meat processing companies in Ireland and I can comfortably say that this growth would not have been possible without the help and support of Emydex.

Whatever new project we had to accomplish the team at Emydex were always available to lend their support and expertise to ensure the end goals were met.  Dave and his team have always demonstrated the utmost professionalism in all our dealings, and I look forward to many more fruitful years working together.”

Staunton Foods

ex-11yr-client-profile-pic-a

John O’Regan
Sales Manager
Staunton Foods

About STAUNTON FOODS

Staunton Foods is a privately owned pork abattoir and cutting plant in Timoleague, West Cork. Founded in 1950 Staunton Foods is now one of the main pig meat processors in Ireland. Since opening the purpose built factory in 1996, Stauntons have been supplying quality Pork and Bacon products for over 60 years both to domestic and export markets.

Subsequent expansion of the factory in 2005, 2008 and again in 2012 has allowed Staunton Foods to grow to become one of the main pig meat processors in Ireland.

After the factory expansion in 2012, Staunton Foods chose to implement Emydex’s Pig Kill Line and livestock payments system in their abattoir operation.

If you want to learn more – contact Emydex in any of our global market offices in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or North America

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Emydex 20 years – Dawn Pork & Bacon

Dawn Pork & Bacon

Pork Primal Processor,
1 plant, Co. Waterford, Ireland

Emydex customer from 2006 - 2024 (18 years)

“We in Dawn Pork & Bacon are delighted to celebrate a very successful partnership of 18 years with Emydex in 2024. The Emydex suite of software plays an integral part in the day-to-day running of our business. The system is very user-friendly allowing production staff to fully engage with it. As a result, the information the system produces is extremely reliable enabling us to maintain tight control of our yields, stock management, and our supply chain.

We look forward to continuing our partnership with Emydex in the future. A future that will include increased regulatory control and sustainability reporting challenges within the Agri-Business sector. In partnership with Emydex, we are confident that these challenges can be overcome.”

Dawn Pork & Bacon

Billie Leslie
Financial Controller
Dawn Pork & Bacon

About Dawn Pork & Bacon

Started in 1986 Dawn Pork & Bacon’s operation consists of pork slaughtering through to deboning. Dawn Pork & Bacon provides pork products to customers in countries worldwide including mainland Europe, Japan, Korea, USA, Russia and Ireland.

An Emydex customer since 2006, Dawn Pork and Bacon use Emydex software for packing, warehousing and dispatch, as well as sales order processing and yield reporting through delivery of a full set of Yield reports specifically customised for Dawn Pork & Bacon’s requirements.

The company approached Emydex when its previous system had become outdated and expensive to run.

If you want to learn more – contact Emydex in any of our global market offices in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or North America

Request a Demo

Farmer Bookings & Feedback via Livestock Portal

Farmer Bookings & Feedback via Livestock Portal

A new web-based appointment booking and feedback system, reduces paperwork, facilitates easier appointments, and provides transparent feedback to producers and farmers in real-time and accurately

Feb 2022

The supply of livestock from the producer to the meat processor is underpinned by the consistent supply of livestock of the correct quality, correct inspection and optimal grading of these animals while processing in meat processing factories. This is applicable to Beef, Lamb and Pork/hog producers and processors. 

This relationship can now also be built-upon and strengthened with the use of a transparent data transfer from the processor back to the producers via a new Emdyex web-based appointment booking and feedback system. This is achieved via Emydex standard APIs that interact directly with Emydex factory floor MES Solutions running on Kill lines in Abattoirs and Slaughterhouses around the world. 

 

Animal Health Feedback 

Farmers could have the ability to make bookings and appointments, receive Health feedback information, download their financial information, as well as receive their remittances digitally through the Portal, reducing unnecessary paper documentation and helping both sides work towards their sustainability goals.

To facilitate the seamless exchange of producer/Processor data, Emydex has developed a comprehensive suite of secure web APIs. These are designed to simplify the livestock supply from producer to processor and offer the ability to surface kill line and grade data about the supplied livestock back to the producer.

 

Farmer Appointments & Bookings

Authorised agents and suppliers can book appointments to supply their livestock to the processor directly using the API calls embedded in a web portal which can be run via a web browser on a desktop PC or mobile device. This makes the process of selling livestock to the processor far simpler than initiating a booking via other means, eliminating double handling of data and reducing the opportunity for errors in the process.

The Emydex Supplier WebAPI Module consists of several API endpoints that can be called to perform various operations, such as registering new suppliers and livestock delivery appointments directly within Emydex, providing details of any generated payments and retrieving relevant data collected on the Emydex kill line. 

 

Visibility of Grading & Quality Data

This can include the data from the Emydex veterinary inspection stations, grading data and if applicable data from chiller grading processes (MSA). The data retrieval from the kill line via the APIs can be performed at a per delivery or lot level or down to the individual sides of the carcasses forming part of a particular delivery or lot. This offers much greater visibility of the grading and quality data registered to each carcass by the processor and provides comprehensive feedback to the supplier on the condition of the livestock supplied to the factory. How each carcass was graded informs how each carcass was ultimately priced for payment. This can assist the supplier in improving the quality of supplied livestock to meet the producers’ requirements.

By combining the Emydex Kill Line, Central Animal Payments System and Livestock API modules in one wholistic solution, Beef, Lamb and Pork livestock suppliers and processors can achieve a higher level of digital integration when considering the supply of animals to the plant and also receiving performance feedback on the quality of supply and pricing calculations applied to the delivery.

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Emydex CAPS off year with Livestock Payments System

Emydex CAPS off the year with a new Livestock Settlements System

For most Meat processors, the procurement of raw materials, especially Livestock, is by far the largest variable cost for the business to manage. Therefore, being able to ensure the Accurate andTimely payment for this stock is a key requirement. Many Meatprocessors choose to differentiate themselves from their competitors based on the speed and accuracy of payment to their suppliers. Emydex’s recently redeveloped Central Animal Payment System (CAPS) is designed to meet this requirement specifically, as well as to provide functionality that provides parameter-driven flexibility to meet all current and future requirements.

 

Calculating Animal Settlements

The key to the success of the system is the ability to design animal payment ‘methods’ that can be added to the system as a component to suit individual customer needs without modifying the existing system. This means that if there is a requirement for a new way of paying a supplier, whether it be based on a contract, supply volumes, average market process, or a complex grid-based system, these can be developed and ‘locked in’ to the existing system as a snapshot for later retrieval.

As standard, the Animal Payment System caters to multiple payment grids where any data from the kill floor or kill ‘lot’ (delivery) can be incorporated into multiple axes of a grid to generate a payment.

This might be a weight range and fat score or a meat marbling score and dentition range i.e. virtually any combination of data elements that can be measured as part of livestock processing.

Multiple grids can be used to accumulate values such as a supplementary ‘bonus’ value or to allow a record to pass to a second grid if the criteria for the first grid e.g. a carcass that is too heavy or old for the first payment grid. This ‘fall through’ process can be repeated until a grid that matches is finally found.

 

Cattle Payment Invoicing and Adjustments

The system is capable of producing recipient-created tax invoices (RCTI) for suppliers (farmers), third-party agents, commissioned livestock buyers, transport companies and service or contract kills (an accounts receivable transaction rather than the usual accounts payable).

User-defined adjustments, again using virtually any of the data in the system, can apply adjustments to this invoice to either deduct money for items such as carcass faults, levies, transport costs etc. or apply a rebate such as a ‘skin’ or hide credit. These can be applied automatically using pre-defined ‘settlement schemes’ (groups of adjustments) or added manually on a case-by-case basis.

 

Carcass Costings

As a carcass is produced, the system can calculate the cost for the carcass per kg (or lb) by running each carcass record through the various livestock settlement processes to generate the total cost, so not only is the cost of the purchase from the supplier included but also the cost of freight, commissions etc.

Costs that do not appear on any invoice such as a kill fee can also be included if required. This allows for carcasses to be costed before the payment is finalised so if the carcass is disposed of via a sale or boning process, the cost can be reported as part of the input to the process for accurate costings. Alternatively, carcass costs can be updated once the payment is finalised.

 

Animal Payment Reporting

Invoice and costing data can be updated to an in-house or 3rd party provider ERP or Financial system for payment with full audit trails and costing audits available in the CAPS system. Standard reports are available and data from the payment system can be surfaced using the in-built Emydex Business Intelligence (BI) tool.

Kill data can be from Emydex kill floor systems or up-uploaded from multiple sources and sites to allow for a centralized system for consolidated processing and reporting.

 

Centralised Payments catering for large Enterprises

Given the flexibility and extensibility of the system, current and future needs can easily be met with an ‘out of the box’ system. Once configured the system can generate payments, email all parties involved and update costs and financial systems at the push of a button. Payment processes that would traditionally take hours can be streamlined and the labour requirements significantly reduced.

Accurate costings allow for true profitability costing as the input costs to sales and further processing are readily available.

With the ability to run as a centralised process taking data from many sources, both large enterprises to single site operations can all gain tremendous advantages from the new system.

 

If you want to learn more – contact Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, or North America offices.

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New FDA Requirements for Seafood Traceability

New FDA Requirements for Seafood Traceability

 

Seafood Traceability Requirements

Retailers, restaurants, and consumers have been very frustrated with the fraud and mislabeling of fish and seafood across the USA. A global review of seafood fraud studies around the world found one in five of more than 25,000 samples of seafood tested worldwide was mislabeled. In a bid to restore some consumer confidence back to the seafood industry, in November 2022, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a new ruling with respect to seafood traceability.

 

Key Data Elements & Critical Tracking Events

The list includes most kinds of seafood. The final rule is a requirement that persons who manufacture, process, pack or hold food on the Food Traceability List (FTL), must maintain records that include Key Data Elements (KDEs) related to Critical Tracking Events (CTEs). Seafood producers that qualify under these rules will be required to provide information to the FDA within 24 hours or otherwise some reasonable timeframe to which the FDA agrees. 

Time is running out for Food and Beverage companies, including fish and seafood processing plants, to build the automated infrastructure to support capturing such traceability information required under the new FDA rules. Food companies need to look for a proven solution like Emydex to support these new traceability requirements.

 

Fish & Seafood Processing

The FDA has aggressive deadlines, few exceptions, and no phase-in. The proposed rule would make compliance using paper-based systems nearly impossible. These rules apply to both domestic and imported fish, thus requiring all exporting countries like Canada, Europe, and UK to comply with these rules or be barred from trading in the USA. The USA currently imports up to 85% of its seafood, according to NOAA Fisheries.

To ensure the required traceability information is shared across all supply chain entities, the best way to implement the rule is for all persons to have completed the implementation of the rules by January 20, 2026. Although companies might think 2026 is a long way away, it can take up to 2 or more years to select and implement an automated solution to capture the traceability information to enable food processing companies to be able to generate the traceability reporting within 24 hours.

 

End to End Traceability

Emydex provides the solution for effective and efficient tracing of the harvesting of fish or seafood from the vessel on the sea or farms, through receiving at the ports, to transfers to storage in cold stores or a processing plant, following the production process, the distribution and finally receipt at a retailer or other value add processors.

Vessel Labeling & Payments
Vessel Labeling & Payments

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Landing and Transfer to Plant

Emydex-Fish-Intake
Labelling

Emydex-Fish-and-Seafood-Industry
Processing

Emydex-Fish-Packing-Processing
Packing

Picking & Delivery
Picking & Delivery

Barcode Scanning

Emydex captures the data along the supply chain through the use of traceability barcode lot codes applied to containers, to monitor the flow of products in different forms through the supply chain, using scanners connected to the Emydex system. The traceability barcodes share information as the product flows to different entities along the supply chain. The barcode lot labels comply with the global GS1 standards to ensure the barcodes are readable across the supply chain and globally around the world.

 

How Does Emydex Enable You To Be Compliant?

Emydex provides a proven manufacturing execution system (MES) for the fish and seafood industry. Operating in over 25 factories, covering a wide range of products, the Emydex system covers all processes from boat labeling, landing, primary, secondary and further processing. Not only can factories that choose to implement Emydex MES ensure they are compliant with the upcoming FDA requirements, but they can also leverage Emydex to enable automation, have real-time inventory on all stock, and manage yields from door to door.

These automated solutions take time to implement, so with the FDA compliance as of Jan. 2026, Fish Processing and other Food Processing Companies need to start now.

For more information on an Emydex Traceability solutions for Fish & Seafood processors read ...

Emydex Traceability in Tuna Processor in the Philippines

Meliomar Inc. is a tuna and seafood processing and export company based in Manila. Their Emydex factory floor traceability reporting system first went live in 2018.

Contact Emydex for information on how we can help you automate your processes to ensure you can meet the FDA requirements.

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Turning over a new leaf in New Zealand

Turning Over A New Leaf In New Zealand

How Emydex helped the largest livestock processing company in New Zealand to replace a 25-year-old Abattoir system with a new state-of-the-art solution that worked so well, it’s planned to go into 13 other facilities. The pilot operation in Christchurch was originally scheduled for a three-week installation but was up and running in just four days. However, the conversation with Silver Fern Farms started over a decade ago, the tendering process was exhaustive, and preparation and simulation reached a whole new level of precision.

 

Meet The Client

Silver Fern Farms is the largest livestock processor in New Zealand with a 30% market share, 7,000 employees working across 14 plants and a turnover of NZ$ 2.7b. They represent 16,000 sheep, cattle, and deer farmers, exporting to 60 countries worldwide. The Silver Fern Farms headquarters is in the centre of Dunedin on the South Island.

Emydex has been working on a deal with Silver Fern Farms since 2010 which makes this the longest sales cycle in the company’s history. Over the course of the 10-year discussions, the Emydex team paid several visits to Silver Fern Farm’s head office in Dunedin, as well as beef processing plants across New Zealand, and various delegations from Silver Fern Farms travelled to Ireland to visit Emydex at their head office in Dublin, as well as Emydex customer plants in Ireland and the UK.

 

The Opportunity

In 2019, Silver Fern Farms informed Emdyex that they were ready to start a formal project to replace their ageing factory floor traceability and production control system systems. The pilot plant was to be their primal beef processing facility in Belfast, Christchurch which had been using the same system for 25 years.

As part of the formal tender process, Emydex pitched against two other international specialist firms, as well as a local supplier of MES software systems. The pitch process comprised a comprehensive selection process that included two days of presentations and meetings, involving demonstrations of nine scripted scenarios (traceability, packing, etc) over seven hours before thirty people from the Silver Fern Farm’s group, followed by a second day of meetings with their internal IT team as well as their engineering department. In the end, Emydex emerged as the preferred supplier and was awarded the contract for a beef primal processing pilot project in their Belfast plant in Christchurch.

 

What Emydex Did

The project was originally planned to go live in July 2020 when the Belfast plant traditionally closed for a 3-week period, but the COVID-19 pandemic brought everything to a halt. Due to the pandemic, the project was moved back by a year. During that time, the project scope expanded to include other technical aspects for delivery, for example, a whole new system for animal assembly.

The new Emydex system configured for Silver Fern Farm’s handles everything from the booking and intake of the animals and follows the flow through the factory floor including the stun station, live weight, head inspections, carcass inspections, reinspection, and grading. Everything meets the strictest New Zealand government veterinarian standards and procedures, and it all integrates with the existing CRS system for streamlined payment processing.

 

Emydex System In Use

 

Automation was a big part of the project, replacing the factory floor terminals with integration to their programmable logic controllers (PLCs). Each hook has an identification on the hook and the system collects information at every station along the line.

Automation like this is the main difference we see between the European and the Australian and New Zealand markets. The level of investment in automation is higher but it pays back in labour efficiencies – machines don’t catch COVID.

James Grennan, Technical Director, Emydex

 

Going Live

The project finally went live in November 2021 following a comprehensive testing and training schedule for all operatives that included simulations, dry runs, full monitoring of everything at all stages and then an Emydex team onsite. The client anticipated a three-week switchover, but the joint teams managed to complete the switchover in just four days.

 

Emydex On-Site Training

 

The Belfast plant operates two shifts, producing 20 hours a day which makes it a very busy plant. Emydex supports the plant at all times, 24x7, with a team of Emydex engineers spread across New Zealand, Australia, Ireland, and Canada, following the sun.

 

From our support offices in New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and Canada we can follow the sun so that should anyone in Silver Fern Farms have an issue, they can call Emydex on just one number and there will be someone at their desk to take their call and, if it’s a critical issue, it’s a sequential line, downtime can cost thousands of dollars a minute. We can analyse and resolve immediately 24 hours a day with our four teams around the world.

Lorna Daly, Head of PMO, Emydex

 

Emydex today have a team of five people employed in New Zealand and ten in the Emdyex Australia office in Brisbane, supporting Silver Fern Farms as well as two other New Zealand food processing companies. This makes Emdyex the largest Irish employer of permanent staff in New Zealand, according to Enterprise Ireland, for whom Emdyex are a client company. In fact, the introduction of Emydex to Silver Ferns Farms originally came via Enterprise Ireland’s Australia office, through one of their market-office staff based in New Zealand.

 

Enterprise Ireland has been a huge help to Emdyex in Australia and New Zealand. The EI Australasia team are so supportive of Emydex and other Irish companies, it’s reassuring to know we have these local supports in place for whenever we need them

David McMahon, CEO, Emydex

 

The Results

As you would expect, the new Emydex system has brought new levels of efficiency and productivity to the Silver Fern Farms facility in Belfast, Christchurch. What is so impressive is that this was a very efficient and well-run operation even before we went near it but soon after go-live, Silver Fern Farms confirmed that they had processed more cattle in one shift than they had ever done before and finished earlier too.

 

The project went well. Emydex is a great system and the staff love using it. The system gives good information and reports, it is easy to use and works well. There are efficiencies in that all the data is in one area, and we no longer have to review or get reports in more than one system to get the information we want. Staff on the floor, as well as leaders and management, have benefitted the most when it comes to information and reports that the Emydex system can supply. Their engineers and technical people are very good; their project managers are very knowledgeable and able to keep us informed

Phillip William Kilgour, Plant Manager, Silver Fern Farms

 

Bringing all different systems into one system will have benefits. This means one system for our end-to-end site process - from livestock booking through to container load-out to the customer. Talking to some of the workers they like the new Emydex system and it has helped them

Shaun O’Neill, Regional Operations Manager, Silver Fern Farms

 

Feedback from Belfast has been very positive, and it’s great to have all site functions in one system as well as having timely access to important information for decision making.

Simon Limmer, CEO, Silver Fern Farms

 

What’s Next?

Based on the success of the pilot project, Silver Fern Farms have accelerated its plan to roll out Emydex to its 13 other processing plants spread across New Zealand. In 2022, the plan in Phase 2 is to tackle Production Scheduling, Packing, and Automatic Labelling along with the implementation of Emydex’s Enterprise Management System (EMS) for Master Data. The EMS system will be used to centrally manage data from the head office to individual plants. In conjunction with Phase 2, additional teams will make any adaptions needed to the existing Livestock processing system required to roll out to other bovine sites and then move on to the implementation of the ovine and venison systems.

 

In Other’s Words

In terms of their professionalism… as a meat processing company, Silver Ferns employ project managers, process managers, business analysts as well as internal QA testers. They installed their own Emydex training lab and ran the kill line with dry runs using big blue plastic barrels (blue cows) hanging from the hooks to simulate carcasses. This level of attention to detail was impressive to see. Emydex is a better company for the experience we had working with Silver Fern Farms.

David McMahon, CEO Emydex

 

One of the biggest and hopefully unique issues with this project was that our team members on the ground had to travel from outside NZ and so quarantine for two weeks in advance of the go live. There was a lottery for the MIQ quarantine places, and it was tough waiting for when the places opened. Even close to the go-live flight cancellations caused some issues with our team having to travel long hours by car. Due to COVID, Emydex has adapted to not having the full team onsite for the launch with team members working remotely. The team worked via video calls and cameras were installed to give a view of the factory floor. We had easy access to remotely control each terminal.

Shane Hayes, Product Manager, Emydex

 

If you want to learn more – contact Ireland, Australia, South Africa or North American offices

Request a Demo