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Emydex & Sustainable Beef. The Journey Goes Live

Supporting a modern beef processing operation in Nebraska

Emydex is proud to announce the go‑live of its software platform at Sustainable Beef, a newly launched beef processing facility based in North Platte, Nebraska, USA. After months of preparation and collaboration, the Emydex team was on site in June 2025 to assist with the final setup, configuration and support for the system’s first operational phase. This marks an important step in the deployment of our solution across the plant and a milestone in our partnership with one of the most forward-thinking beef processors in the United States.

About Sustainable Beef

Sustainable Beef was founded to bring transparency, efficiency and shared value to every part of the beef supply chain. The project was led by a group of cattle producers and investors with deep regional ties and a vision for long-term impact. The North Platte facility is expected to:

  • Process up to 1,500 cattle per day at full capacity
  • Employ over 850 people locally
  • Contribute more than $1.2 billion annually to the Nebraska economy

These figures reflect not just scale but a commitment to redefining community-driven beef production.

On‑site support during go‑live

During the visit, our team worked closely with Sustainable Beef operators to configure and test the platform in a live production environment. Key activities included:

  • Activating kill line traceability
  • Enabling end‑to‑end traceability reporting from intake through dispatch
  • Supporting inventory and quality control functions
  • Assisting with the use of plant-floor devices
  • Ensuring a smooth handover for autonomous system use

Our on‑site support ensured a seamless transition from planning to operation, with full process visibility from day one.

A growing partnership

Sustainable Beef is building more than a processing facility. It is creating a blueprint for transparent, efficient and community-focused beef processing. Emydex will continue to support this mission with scalable modules for production management, traceability, inventory control and compliance. With the successful go‑live now complete, the foundation is laid for ongoing digital transformation and operational excellence. Want to learn more about how Emydex supports beef processors with traceability, efficiency and compliance systems?
Contact us today to schedule a Demo.

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Cattle Shortage and Processor Pressure: What the Market Is Demanding and How to Respond

Across Ireland and much of Europe, beef processors are facing increased pressure to secure livestock while maintaining efficiency in operations. With tighter supply chains and shifting dynamics, the need for reliable animal payments software has never been greater.

At the same time, cattle prices continue to climb. Some Irish processors are offering more than €8 per kilo for certain categories. Producers are no longer just suppliers. They are business partners who expect speed, flexibility and transparency in return for their loyalty.

While some plants are adapting quickly, many still face internal friction that makes it harder to keep up. And when delays affect critical relationships, the consequences can be costly.

A Shift in Power and Expectation

Recent news stories reflect this changing landscape. Reports highlight how factories are offering more flexibility to secure cattle. In some cases, a price gap of up to €200 per head is driving livestock north for slaughter. Other headlines note how marts are attracting producers with faster turnarounds and stronger prices.

This is not isolated. It is a pattern. Producers are making decisions quickly and expect the same from processors.

But when internal systems are outdated, everything slows down. Manual payment processes, delayed reconciliations and unclear supplier statements can erode trust over time. These are not just inefficiencies. They are risks. And in a supply-constrained market, every delay can mean losing a load of cattle to a competitor.

The Role of Technology in a High-Pressure Market

For processors navigating this new reality, technology needs to do more than automate. It needs to provide clarity. It needs to inspire trust. And it needs to integrate seamlessly into daily operations, especially where payments and producer relationships are concerned.

At Emydex, we work closely with some of the largest food processors around the world. That experience has shaped the way we build our systems, always focused on what matters most in practice. Our Animal Payments System is designed specifically to help plants manage livestock payments with greater efficiency and transparency.

The system supports multiple species and payment models, with flexible rule configurations and detailed supplier statements. It integrates with existing ERP and finance systems, supports both EFT and cheque payments, and ensures full audit compliance from end to end. The result is a process that runs faster and more accurately, with fewer disputes and stronger producer relationships.

Why the Right Animal Payments Software Matters

When supply is tight and prices are rising, maintaining trust with producers becomes essential. And that trust is built on reliability. Fast, accurate payments show suppliers that a processor values the relationship and is ready to do business with clarity and professionalism.

This is no longer just a finance issue. It is a strategic one.

Processors who continue relying on manual processes risk falling behind. Those who modernise their systems will be better prepared to move quickly, respond to market changes, and maintain a steady intake of quality livestock.

Emydex helps make that possible. To see how our Animal Payments System supports processors in high-pressure environments, visit our page.

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

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Meet our Meat Industry Experts

Meet Our Team of Meat Industry Experts​

Key to our success in Emydex is having a strong team of meat industry experts and business analysts who truly understand the workings of the meat industry at a deep level.

To achieve this level of Industry domain knowledge and expertise, Emydex business analysts must have spent many years working first in the meat industry, on the other side of the table, whether directly on the factory floor or in back-office functions serving factory floor production teams.

Emydex are proud to have announced over the past year, a number of key appointments that strengthen and bolster our international team of meat industry experts, a team led by Shane Hayes.

 

Meet the Experts - Shane

 

Shane Hayes – Product Manager
(Ireland & Australia)

Shane Hayes has led Emydex’s team of business analysts since first joining Emydex seven years ago. Originally from South Australia, Shane’s career has spanned both IT and meat processing operations, giving him the hybrid skills required to bridge the gap between IT technical solutions and factory floor business processes. During his seven years working in the JBS lamb plant in Bordertown, South Australia, Shane started out in the role as site IT Manager.

He later moved into another back-office role that was Factory Production planning and scheduling, before making the move to the factory floor as a Boning Hall foreman.

Before joining Emydex in 2018, Shane spent six months working as a production hall supervisor with Irish Country Meats, Ireland’s leading lamb processor, in their main plant in Camolin in Ireland, a plant that (independent of Shane) went live with its first Emydex MES systems for appointments, lairage and kill line last year (2024).

 

Meet the Experts - Ladislav

 

Ladislav Ondrejicka
(Ireland & Slovakia)

Latso’s journey in the meat industry started on the factory processing floors in the Dunbia Group in the UK, where he spent almost a decade working his way up from being a boning hall meat trimmer to an IT Project Manager. His experience managing large-scale processing projects has given him a deep understanding of factory operations and the challenges processors face daily.

His knowledge of the workings of the meat industry, ran in parallel to his knowledge of Emydex, as for his tenure with Dunbia, Latso was instrumental in supporting the roll-out of Emydex to Dunbia’s ten plants in the UK.

With hands-on experience in production and management, Ladislav is expertly equipped to support our customers in streamlining operations. At Emydex, he plays a key role in ensuring our technology delivers real-world benefits to the industry.

Meet the Experts_Jayne

 

Jayne McMillan (New Zealand)

With almost 30 years working at Alliance Group Ltd, in various roles including Laboratory manager, MES Project manager, as well as an ERP consultant, Jayne has built an impressive career in the meat industry, gaining expertise across operations, quality control and business management.

In addition to her corporate experience, she also owns and operates her own butchery business in South Island, New Zealand, giving her firsthand insight into both large-scale processing and retail butchery. Jayne is a qualified trade butcher and her hobbies include Trapshooting, Hunting and Farming.

 

 

Meet the Experts - robin

 

Robert Tobin (Ireland)

Robert has a long-standing relationship with Emydex, having worked with Emydex systems in Slaney Meats for eight years. He brings with him over 24 years of experience as the IT Manager at ABP Slaney, where he also managed his own IT consulting company for over 15 years. During this time, he developed software and traceability systems for the food and transport industries.

At Slaney Meats, Robert successfully project managed the installation of an Emydex kill line for the factory and served as our primary point of contact for many years, making him well-versed in Emydex systems. Today, Robert continues to bring his wealth of experience to Emydex customers, helping them implement best-in-class solutions.

 

With over 80 years of combined experience working in Meat plants, Emydex are proud to have this strength and depth in our Business Analysis team, sharing their vast domain knowledge and industry expertise to ensure we continue delivering solutions that meet the needs of the meat industry.

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 Showcase Cutting-Edge Solutions at IPPE 2025

Emydex at IPPE 2025​

Emydex Technology is excited to announce our participation in the International Production & Processing Expo (IPPE) 2025, taking place from January 28th to 30th in Atlanta, USA. Following a highly successful debut at IPPE 2024, we are thrilled to return and showcase our latest innovations in packaging, processing, and quality management.

Watch the video below summarising our highlights and reflections at the show.

Live Demonstrations of Packaging and Labelling Systems

Our CEO, David McMahon, along with our Team Lead for North America, Cody Musclow, will be present at the BAADER booth C29159.

Over the course of three days, we will be demonstrating our state-of-the-art software solutions, including live demonstrations of our latest Box Packing and Labelling system, as well as our Electronic Quality Management System (EQMS). These systems have been successfully implemented in leading companies such as Murray’s Chickens in New York, whom we first met at IPPE 2024.

Emydex team at IPPE 2025_emydex-ippe-2005-03

The IPPE is the world’s largest annual poultry and egg, meat, and animal food industry event, attracting over 30,000 attendees and 1,400 exhibitors. It provides a unique platform for industry professionals to explore the latest products, services, research, processes, and technologies. This year, we are particularly excited to highlight our collaboration with BAADER, showcasing our combined digitization solutions for poultry processors.

Emydex team at IPPE 2025

If you are attending IPPE, we invite you to visit us at the BAADER booth to learn more about our innovative solutions. To arrange an appointment and schedule a software demonstration, please reach out to Cody Musclow at cody.musclow@emydex.com.

We look forward to seeing you at IPPE 2025 and demonstrating how Emydex can help enhance your production processes with our cutting-edge technology.

Find your way to our booth!

Emydex team at IPPE 2025_emydex-ippe-2025-where-to-find-us

 

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 site visit to Sustainable Beef, Nebraska

Visiting Sustainable Beef in Nebraska

Earlier this month in Mid-November,  Shane Hayes, Emydex Product Manager and Cody Musclow, Project Manager with Emydex North America, visited the new Sustainable Beef packing plant in North Platte, Nebraska as part of our business discovery, and requirements gathering phase. In this article, we share highlights from the Emydex Sustainable Beef Nebraska site visit and what it means for our North American strategy.

The visit marked a significant step in this latest Emydex project with Sustainable Beef, enabling Emydex to gain deeper insights into the workings and processes within this greenfield plant, from farm to fork, from ranchers to retailers, including some truly innovative processes.

Emydex visited Sustainable Beef-Beef-Plant

Partnership Between Emydex and Sustainable Beef

Shane Hayes, said “we are thrilled to be chosen to partner with Sustainable Beef in this new start up venture in the US. This project’s scope includes many ‘firsts’ from various stakeholders, which makes it a very exciting project to be involved in. After touring the plant and gaining a clear understanding of the vision for this new enterprise, we believe that the term ‘the biggest little plant in the US’ is perfectly fitting.

Emydex pay special thanks to the Sustainable Beef team, especially Kris Smith, Ryan Wagnon for their support and contributions.

Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to drive forward with this exciting project!

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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Forresters Chicken Celebrates a Decade of Quality Management with Emydex

A Decade of Quality Management Excellence​

Over the past ten years, Forresters Chicken has leveraged Emydex’s Quality Management system to enhance accuracy, reduce human error, gain real-time insights into quality data, and improve traceability. This collaboration has significantly transformed Forresters Chicken’s operations, ensuring the highest standards of quality and efficiency in their processes.

Meet the Client

Established in 1972, Forresters is one of the largest suppliers of cooked, raw, and coated poultry in the United Kingdom. Based in Cheshire, the company provides retailers, food services, pub retailers, manufacturers, and catering butchers with frozen, chilled branded, and own-label chicken products. To maintain its reputation for high-quality standards, Forresters set out to enhance its quality management processes.

The Opportunity

With a growing client base and increasing production demands, Forresters required a more streamlined and robust approach to quality management. Existing manual quality checks were resource-intensive and prone to human error, especially as production volumes rose. Furthermore, limited real-time access to quality data hindered swift decision-making and posed challenges in meeting regulatory standards.

Forresters needed a comprehensive Quality Management System (QMS) that could automate quality workflows, provide real-time data, and integrate with their ERP system for seamless traceability and compliance tracking. Forresters had been operating an Emydex factory floor MES (Manufacturing Execution System) for production control, yield management and traceability reporting for many years, so it was a straightforward decision to extend our Emydex software footprint to include all of our Quality, Compliance and Food Safety Management processes.

What We Did

Working closely with Forrester’s management, our team worked with Emydex to develop and implement a customised QMS solution that aligned with Forrester’s operational goals. The implementation process was structured in two main phases:

1. Phase One – Digitalising Quality Checks
Forresters began by introducing automated digital checklists across the production floor, replacing paper logs and allowing quality checks to be completed via tablets at each workstation. Data is now collected on tablets running the Emydex Quality system in real-time, and any deviations from standards trigger instant alerts, allowing issues to be addressed immediately.

2. Phase Two – Comprehensive Quality Dashboard
In the next phase, Forresters deployed an Emydex quality system dashboard for management and supervisors, providing a centralised view of quality metrics across production. The dashboard consolidates data on batch compliance, audit trails, incident reporting, and corrective actions. Fully integrated with Forrester’s ERP system, it links directly to purchasing and inventory data, ensuring traceability from raw materials to finished products.

3. Automated Audit and Compliance Reporting
A key feature of the Emydex EQMS is its automated compliance reporting. The system generates real-time, auditable compliance reports accessible from any device, dramatically reducing the time required for internal and external audits. Issues are flagged and assigned for resolution, enhancing accountability across departments.

The Results

Since implementing the Emydex Quality Management system, Forresters has significantly improved operational efficiency and quality compliance.

Enhanced Accuracy and Reduced Human Error: Automated digital checklists have replaced manual entries, reduced errors and ensured consistency in quality checks across all lines.

Real-Time Quality Insights: Managers and supervisors can now view quality metrics instantly, enabling quick decision-making and proactive quality control.

Efficient Compliance Audits: Compliance reporting, which previously required days of preparation, is now generated instantly by Emydex, saving time and resources. Audit readiness has also improved, as records are automatically archived and easily accessible.

Improved Traceability: The QMS enables complete traceability from raw material intake to finished product distribution, facilitating stock rotation and maintaining quality at every stage.

Feedback from Key Stakeholders

Dwayne Chin, Head of Technical at Forresters, noted, “The Emydex QMS has been transformative for our business. Our team no longer spends hours sorting through paper logs; we can spot and address issues immediately. Compliance reporting that once took days is now ready in minutes, giving us more control over quality and peace of mind.”

John Acornley, Finance Director, added, “With the Emydex Quality system in place, Forresters have significantly reduced errors and improved our response times. The Emydex automated alerts keep our team informed, and the dashboard makes it easy to stay on top of production quality. It’s been a huge upgrade.”

Summary

The Emydex Quality Management System implemented at Forresters has streamlined operations and reinforced its commitment to delivering high-quality products to its clients. By enhancing workflows, improving traceability, and enabling instant access to quality data, the QMS has empowered Forresters to meet regulatory standards and confidently scale its operations.

Don’t wait! Embrace the future of quality management with Emydex’s Electronic Quality Management Software (EQMS).

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