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The 4 Hidden Risks of Poor Traceability and How to Eliminate Them

In the food processing industry, traceability is no longer just about compliance. For leaders, it is a strategic capability that directly impacts ROI, brand trust and operational resilience.

Yet many processors still rely on outdated or fragmented systems, exposing themselves to risks that are avoidable. If your business cannot trace a product by batch, shift, supplier or site instantly, you are likely facing more than just inefficiency.

1. Product Recalls

According to Consumer Brands Association, the average cost of a product recall is 10 million dollars. That does not include damage to brand reputation or customer relationships.

Without real-time traceability, identifying and isolating affected batches becomes slow and imprecise. The longer it takes to act, the greater the exposure.

2. Regulatory Non-Compliance

Many countries enforce strict regulations regarding food traceability. Failure to comply with these requirements can lead to legal penalties, failed audits, loss of operating licenses and serious reputational damage.

As outlined by the Food Safety Institute, traceability is a core pillar of modern food safety management, and weak systems are a risk few businesses can afford to take.

3. Increased Risk of Fraud

Lack of traceability opens the door to fraudulent activities, including mislabelling, product substitution or deliberate manipulation of records. These practices threaten not only food safety, but also consumer trust and business credibility.

Robust traceability systems help protect against intentional and unintentional breaches by increasing transparency and accountability throughout the supply chain.

4. Damaged Brand Trust

In today’s global food industry, transparency builds competitive advantage. Customers, partners and regulators expect clear, real-time data that supports both traceability and accountability.

One traceability gap can compromise years of brand investment and erode long-standing relationships.

Smart Investments in Traceability in Food Processing

Top-performing food processors treat traceability as part of their strategy. They invest in:

  • Real-time traceability
  • Traceability across sites
  • Batch-level traceability
  • Audit-ready traceability

This level of visibility allows them to mitigate risk, act faster, and strengthen performance across every plant.

How Emydex Helps

The Traceability Reporting module from Emydex is designed specifically for food processors operating in complex, multi-site environments.

It gives your team fast, accurate and reliable traceability, without manual searching or data gaps. With Emydex, you can:

  • Run full trace reports in seconds
  • Filter by product, supplier, time or location
  • Investigate incidents while production continues
  • Meet audit and compliance requirements with confidence

And because it is part of the wider Emydex platform, it integrates seamlessly with MES, ERP and quality systems for total control.

Time to Take Control

If your current traceability system is slowing your team down, exposing your business to risk, or making compliance more difficult than it should be, it may be time to rethink the strategy.

At Emydex, we help food processors simplify traceability across complex operations, providing the visibility, speed and confidence your teams need.

To learn more, contact Emydex at any of our global market offices in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa or North America.

Request a Demo

Emydex drives Quality to New Heights at Murray’s Chicken in New York

Implementing Emydex at Murray’s Chicken​

Founded by Murray Bresky in 1992, Murray’s Chicken is dedicated to the local community and delivering top-quality meat. Today, Murray’s chickens are raised in the hills of Southeastern Pennsylvania and processed just over the New York state line in the Catskill Mountain region of Sullivan County. By partnering with a select number of family farms, Murray’s strengthens local economies and supports small farmers, allowing them to focus on producing broilers of exceptional quality and taste. Quality in all aspects is the driving force of the company.

Murray’s Upgrades to Real-Time Quality Control 

When it came to quality control and traceability, Murray’s Chicken used to rely on pen and paper to record production parameters, with employees carrying clipboards to perform checks throughout the day. This manual process often caused delays, making it impossible to implement immediate adjustments if something was off. The plant manager had to locate the person with the paperwork to review checklists before acting, consuming many man-hours and requiring extensive storage for years of data.  

Audits involved sorting through multiple binders, which was time-consuming and cumbersome. While this method complied with regulations, customer demands, and audits, it didn’t enhance the process, and valuable process history could easily get lost. Although outdated, this approach is still typical in many similar plants today. Murray’s sought an electronic quality management system (EQMS), that worked in real-time. Whilst visiting the BAADER booth at the IPPE tradeshow in Atlanta in early 2024, they got introduced to BAADER’s new software partner, Emydex Technology. 

Murray’s primarily buys their factory floor machines from BAADER, and appreciates the synergies with Emydex, which offers a platform to monitor machine performance. They could see benefits in Emydex being tightly integrated with their machine manufacturer. 

Digital Quality Control Replaces Paper Clipboards

Within six weeks of starting the project, Murray’s technical team, in collaboration with Emydex, successfully implemented the Emydex system for quality checks on their first processing lines in the New York factory. The entire Evisceration process is now operational on the Emydex platform. “Only six weeks later, the first devices were out on the floor replacing paper clipboards in the evisceration area”, said Phil Wise, Plant Manager at Murray’s Chicken.

Since then, EQMS has expanded to include sixteen unique workflow designs throughout the facility. There are five QC tablet devices in operation, used by multiple teams completing over one hundred different workflows per day and counting. During this bedding-in period, the Emydex team was on hand to answer questions and provide support as needed, taking Murray’s feedback and incorporating it into the EQMS system to benefit all customers. Next step is to integrate secondary processing and shipping, making the entire process electronic for data capture and reporting on all aspects of QC.

“When it came to training, Emydex made sure to thoroughly teach our QC Manager, not only how to build quality checks, but also to customize them to be exactly how she wanted them to be. Once the initial training was done, it has been pretty easy”, said Phil Wise. “The QC technicians enter the plant with their tablets, get trained, and then it becomes second nature to them. It also benefits me as the plant manager. I spend a lot of time at my computer, and I can see the checks being carried out in real time. This saves me a lot of time as I can see exactly what I want to see, when I want to see it, without having to leave the office and go into the plant to find someone”.

Murray's Chicken team implementing Emydex system​_ Murrays-quality-management

“The QC technicians enter the plant with their tablets, get trained, and then it becomes second nature to them” 

Phil Wise, Plant Manager Murray’s Chicken. 

Saving Time and Reducing Errors

“In terms of the greatest benefit we see from the Emydex system, it is mostly time. Emydex eliminates unnecessary checks by integrating all essential ones into its system. Previously, we were performing checks on our checks, for compliance, for customer requirements, and for internal information. With Emydex we were able to eliminate a lot of these additional checks. Emydex allows us to reassess and gives us more time to focus on compliance and process improvement”.

Furthermore, Emydex creates a better sense of accountability. You can see how long it takes for a technician to do a QC check. It creates more authority over the system. Using pen-and-paper, manual errors happen more often, whereas all data captured via an electronic check is monitored, validated and verified.

From a reporting standpoint, it is also quicker and easier to analyse and graph QC data captured, using Emydex’s BI (Business Intelligence) reporting tool. Trends can easily be extracted, and graphs can be compiled right away. “The Emydex system gives me a sense of security that the data I am looking at is accurate”, said Phil Wise. Phil also commended the alert system within Emydex, where he gets an email right away whenever there is a deviation. “The more you can have that information in real time, the better off you are to decide how to handle the issue. You don’t have to go hunting for the information”. Previously, issues like an excess of broken wings would only be noticed via paper records at the end of the day, necessitating machine adjustments or further investigation the following day.

 

“The new system offers remarkable flexibility. In the past, creating and maintaining paper records was mandatory. Now, by setting alerts for specific criteria within a chosen timeframe, we can cater to particular customer requests. For instance, to prevent potential customer complaints about an excessive number of miscut drumsticks, I could introduce an additional quality control check in the Emydex system and set it to be active for a specified period of time. Once this period is over, the extra check is automatically removed. This system allows such adaptability. When QC personnel go to the floor, they can say, ‘I have a new check to perform; I need to double-check drumstick cases for customer X.’ Implementing these corrective actions helps in continual growth. Once you familiarize yourself with the system, its ease of use becomes apparent”, said Phil.

Murray's Chicken team implementing Emydex system​_Murrays-quality-management

Instant Access to Quality Data

Murray’s vision is to have the entire plant use Emydex for quality and compliance checks, with the same tablets also being used to access machine manuals, monitor performance, and view product grading images. This would help maintenance and QC work together more effectively, supporting production staff. Maintenance could check vendor quality with QC in real time. For instance, if there were mishaps in the last batch of birds, maintenance could immediately analyse the machine’s performance. “Our bird counter is automated and integrated. When a technician inspects the deboning machine, for example, he should access the history of checks through the system, including KPIs and alerts. There is a lot that the system can do, which is not utilized yet. Especially considering machine performance, which has great potential”, said Phil.

“The Emydex team is easy going and great to work with, they are always available 24/7. I would even go so far as to say they are world-class people to deal with. Emydex understands the process a little bit differently, but this is the beauty of the system: it accommodates Murray’s customer-specific needs”
Phil Wise, Plant Manager Murray’s Chicken.

The system installed at Murray’s Chicken is well-suited for smaller plants that need specialized systems. Over a thousand different product codes, so not everything is standard. The previous system required significant manual effort. With the implementation of Emydex, processes have been standardized, enhancing accountability and traceability. “All information is right at my fingertips. I love it”, said Phil Wise.

Don’t wait! Embrace the future of quality management with electronic quality management software.

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

Ditch the Paperwork with Emydex Quality Management

Meat, Fish, and Food Processors Rejoice!
Ditch the Paperwork with Emydex Quality Management

Gone are the days of mountains of paper checklists and spreadsheets! For meat, fish, and food processors seeking a streamlined, efficient, and data-driven approach to quality management, a revolutionary solution has arrived: Emydex’s electronic quality management software (EQMS) system.

This innovative software eliminates the hassle of manual record-keeping, transforming the way you handle quality surveys and workflows.

Here’s how it elevates your operations:

  • Effortless Data Collection: Say goodbye to handwritten forms & excel. Capture quality data electronically on mobile devices, tablets, or computers, saving time and reducing errors.
  • Real-time visibility & notifications: Gain immediate access to quality data across your entire operation. Identify trends, pinpoint potential issues, and make informed decisions faster. Get notified when issues occur in production.
  • Enhanced Compliance: Ensure adherence to food safety regulations and industry standards with pre-built templates and automated workflows. Reduced Paperwork: Reduce paperwork by up to 90%, save storage space, and go green with a paperless system.
  • Improved Collaboration: Share quality data seamlessly between teams, fostering better communication and transparency.
  • Data-Driven Insights: Generate comprehensive reports and analyse trends to identify areas for improvement and optimize your quality control processes.

Realise the benefits:

  • Reduced Costs: Save time and money spent on managing paper-based systems.
  • Improved Productivity: Streamline workflows and free up valuable employee time.
  • Enhanced Food Safety: Proactively identify and address potential risks, ensuring
    the highest quality products.
  • Increased Customer Confidence: Demonstrate your commitment to quality with a
    robust and transparent system.

Meet the customer:

Dawn Meats is a family-owned business established in Co. Waterford, Ireland in 1980, and has grown to become one of the largest and most important beef and sheep processing groups in the industry. The group employs over 8,000 people in dozens of countries, including 10 sites in Ireland and 13 in the UK, exporting to over 50 countries worldwide.

Every year, Dawn Meats processes over 1 million cattle and 3.5 million sheep, generating more than €2.5 billion in turnover for the company and contributing over €1.67 billion to rural
economies through 30,000 farms in Ireland and the UK. The numbers are staggering, and so is their success.

When Dawn Meats wanted to streamline its quality management system operating on its factory floors, it turned to Emydex. Five years later, Dawn Meats in Ireland and its UK division, Dunbia, operate Emydex’s EQMS system in 15 manufacturing plants, across 13 sites.

What’s Unique?

What is unique about the Emdyex EQMS system is its ability to operate across multiple plants, divisions, and geographies. The Emdyex EQMS system is ideally suited for larger, group-type meat, fish and food processors, those like Dawn Meats operating multiple plants, potentially across multiple countries.

For example, the group technical manager for Dawn Meats has a real-time view of quality across the entire organisation from their laptop. The Technical Manager for Ireland has a view of their plants operating Emydex EQMS in Ireland, and the same for their UK technical manager. Equally, each plant technical manager has a view of their plant QC data. Even though the system has been designed with multi-plant processors front of mind, this Quality system is suitable for single-plant/stand-alone food processors also.

In their words!

“Seeking a solution for collecting quality data in an effective, sustainable manner and utilising this data efficiently, Dawn Meats Group partnered with Emydex to deliver an electronic quality management system for the betterment of food safety & quality in our factories.

We selected Emydex, a long-standing partner of ours, due to Emydex’s understanding of our food production facilities, their excellent software development ability and personal project management delivery.

The Electronic Quality Management System is an innovative, adaptable software solution which fulfils our needs and continues to evolve through more areas of our factories, making them fit for the future. I would like to congratulate Emydex on the success of this project and look forward to our continued partnership in the future.”

Julia Hewerdine, Group Food Safety & Quality Project Manager with Dunbia & Dawn Meats Group

 

“The result is that resources have been freed up, saving cost. Less paperwork, collection is instant, no errors, less time, no printing, archive space has been freed up, we have instant and easy retrieval of documents – everything has improved and is more accurate.

We got what we wanted which is improved collection, visibility and use of our data. That instant visibility means we have real-time situation reports. The tangible savings are obvious- less paper and less ink, for example. The less obvious savings are evident too – less time and effort, fewer mistakes and corrections, reduced hold-ups, etc. I can see if people are making the required quality checks and if they are making them at exactly the right times.

Working with Emydex has been great – they understand their system and have been very helpful. Emydex created a system for support that includes excellent on-going communication. We have worked with them over the past decade on traceability, and so we trusted them. I like how their QMS system is so flexible, and how they could configure it to how we wanted to work – not something you get with an out-of-the-box solution. That flexibility meant that we were given artistic license as to how to develop our own workflows.”

John Coleman, Dawn Group Technical Manager in Ireland

 

“The Emydex Quality Management System offers Dawn Meats plants the ability to instantly deliver quality data during customer audits, easing what once before would have been a page-flicking exercise. Auditors have had a positive outlook on the system, frequently commenting on its benefits of generating reports, assigning close-outs, and collating data at the click of a button.

The paperless system has improved its usability, as users often remark how much quicker it is to find specific paperwork. The system’s simplistic layout has also been beneficial for training, as the checks are easily found under Scheduled and Manual Start Action.

The Emydex Electronic Quality Management System has had a tremendous impact on our data collection on site, as well as safeguarding the completion of checks in a scheduled and timely manner.  Its reliability and speed have ensured that workflows carried out have been given full attention, and no corners are cut.

The system, post workflow completion, offers users the opportunity to view data instantly, and if any issues occur, they can be investigated immediately. The Client extends a library of data to be trended, which in an audit, is a useful tool to safeguard compliance with customer standards.

Easing away from paper-based checks, the system has allowed users to access checks timelier, with the ability for the data to be instantly trended for various stakeholders.  Users, especially QA’s, are fond of the ability to save various checks within the factory, without needing to return the checks to allocated folders, which would previously have occurred. Thus, the systems speed and performance has allowed for advancements in thorough checks on the line, as well as increasing their time to carry out additional daily checks, without needing to carry out tedious admin tasks.”

Alan McCormack, Technical at Dawn Meats Group

 

Don’t wait! Embrace the future of quality management with electronic quality management software.

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

Emydex’s Cutting-Edge Technology for Sheep tracking with NLIS.

Emydex’s Cutting-Edge Technology for Sheep tracking with NLIS.

Following Victoria’s introduction of RFID ear tags for sheep and the requirement for all sheep to be registered in the National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) the other Australian states have now also mandated this with most requiring the system to be in place by January 2025.

Emydex is well-positioned to be able to assist processors in implementing the system in a cost-effective and efficient way. Having had a system in place from the very first Emydex beef implementation eight years ago and subsequently with a sheep processor in Victoria, the standard livestock processing system can interface with RFID ear tag readers in the yards as well as on the processing floor.

Livestock can be scanned in the yards as it is unloaded via RFID panel readers connected to an Emydex delivery terminal. This station can record the delivery information such as the vehicle details, NVD number, animal numbers delivered, welfare issues and stock conditions such as wool pull. This data not only updates the delivery information but also uploads the ear tag data to the NLIS database to perform a ‘transfer holdings’ to the abattoir PIC. At this time, any alerts or warnings for the delivered stock are downloaded to the Emydex system.

Similarly, checking of the RFID on the processing line can raise any issues to the processing staff by checking the NLIS database in real-time and triggering alerts to the processing staff. The stations that read the RFID data can be stand-alone, non-manned stations or can be used to collect other information such as stun data (voltage, duration, rise time), sex and dentition, manual ear tags, animal health and weights thereby maximising the utilisation of such stations and enhancing the information collected on the line for later reporting.

 

Example Processing Line NLIS station.

Emydex-Processing Line NLIS station

The NLIS data is uploaded to the NLIS database either on an individual animal or lot basis thereby meeting the processor's statutory requirements whilst enhancing the efficiency and data collection on the processing line itself.

 

Emydex NLIS Interface Management Screen

Emydex NLIS Interface Management Screen

The Emydex kill line solution provides a comprehensive solution for the management and processing of livestock from procurement to payment and can be a simple, one-station grading station to sophisticated RFID gambrel tracking solutions processing many carcasses per minute.

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

Expanding Live Animal Handling Functionality

Having rewritten from scratch, the core Emydex warehousing functions into our new Emydex XDA Android application, Emydex have expanded the handheld scanning functionality to cover Live Animal handling for beef processing, lamb processing and pork processing.

Deaths of animals (prior to slaughter) are now able to be captured in Emydex using the XDA application on portable handheld devices which includes options not limited to Dead-On-Arrival, Condemn on Arrival, Dead-in-Yard and Condemn-in-Yard.

“Although it does not happen often when an injured animal is presented and the veterinarian and company animal welfare officer (AWO) agree that the animal is not fit for slaughter, the animal should be killed on the spot to ensure that animal suffering is minimised” – Shane Hayes Product Manager.

The XDA application now also allows approved operators to be able to capture the details of the animal such as ear tag or slap mark/tattoo and the reasons why the animal has been condemned. This information can then be used for historical reporting, as well as analysis and trending using Emydex BI.

XDA-RFID

At times, customers will need to feed animals whilst they are on the plant before they are killed. Feeding details such as feed type, time, operator and comments can now be captured against a lot of animals using handheld devices.

Lastly, when bovine or ovine have EID ear tags, customers using Bluetooth wands connected to Emydex Android devices can wand the cows or lambs and associate these ear tags with a selected lot. Operators can instantly see the expected quantity, scanned quantity and percentage complete. Once the wanding is completed, documentation can be printed directly from the device.

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

Ensuring Quality & Compliance Across Four Continents

Emydex recently completed the upgrade of its Electronic Quality Management System (EQMS) to the latest Version 6 of the Emydex software suite.

 

A new product development project that started in 2018, working in conjunction with some of the largest food processors in Ireland and the UK who helped with system design, testing, and validation, the Electronic Quality Management System first went live with an Emydex customer, MeatCo Namibia, in late 2019.

Roll-on five years and the Quality Management System is today operating in over twenty meat, fish, and food processing plants around the world, including Emydex customers in Ireland, the UK, Canada, Namibia and South Africa.

One early-stage customer who adopted the Quality system and implemented it in their six Irish beef primal processing plants is currently extending their Emydex QMS roll-out to all their UK meat processing plants, with three UK plants live, another two currently undergoing commissioning, and a further seven to be completed by the end of 2023. In total over twenty plants will be running the Emydex quality management system, split across two country divisions.

This is very much at the core of the system i.e., the ability to centrally manage and control technical and quality data across multiple divisions, geographies, and plants, in a standard and consistent way.

At present, the system is being extended to offer capabilities for Emydex customers to perform Supplier Audits, and development is underway to offer data capture of Quality workflows, surveys, and audits, via a browser-based application running on Android devices, in addition to Windows OS devices.

Other new additions to the Quality system include product specifications & workflow planning.

 

Product Specifications

Product specifications functionality allows the product definition to be used for various checks based on the check being completed. For example, by completing a check on the dimensions of burgers being produced (Formax check) the workflow can be configured to compare operators’ entries against the product’s configured height, width, and weight. Similarly, if a packaging tare check is being completed, a separate workflow can compare the tare values being captured by the operator.

 

Workflow Planning

The workflow planning functionality was developed on the back of Emydex customer requirements to be able to manage preventative maintenance checks in more detail. This allows a super-user to schedule in more granularity based on timings and users who will complete the workflow.

The Emydex quality management system enables Meat, Fish, and Food processors to manage their Food Safety and Quality Assurance processes. HACCP and PCP can be managed using the system which supports monitoring within the factory, such as Critical Control Points (CCP) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP’s). In addition, the application includes a document management system where key documents can be uploaded and version controlled, meaning that operators in the factory are always accessing the latest approved documents.

 

Commenting on the Quality system roll-out previously, John Coleman, Group Technical Manager with Dawn Meats said

The result is that resources have been freed up, saving cost. Less paperwork, collection is instant, no errors, less time, no printing, archive space has been freed up, we have instant and easy retrieval of documents – everything has improved and is more accurate.

We got what we wanted which is improved collection, visibility, and use of our data. That instant visibility means we have real-time situation reports. The tangible savings are obvious – less paper and less ink, for example. The less obvious savings are evident too – less time and effort, fewer mistakes and corrections, reduced hold-ups, etc. I can see if people are making the required quality checks and if they are making them at exactly the right times.

 

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

Request a Demo