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Silver Fern Farms Extends Emydex Across Venison Processing with Two Successful Plant Go-Lives

Silver Fern Farms has extended its use of Emydex into venison processing, with successful go-lives at two New Zealand plants in five weeks. Rotorua went live on 8 June 2026, followed by Kennington, near Invercargill, on 6 July. The two sites are the seventh and eighth Silver Fern Farms plants to run Emydex, and mark the first venison implementation in Emydex’s 22-year history. 

A partnership that keeps growing 

Silver Fern Farms is New Zealand’s leading processor, marketer and exporter of premium lamb, beef and venison. The company produces around 30% of the country’s red meat across 14 plants, and has been an Emydex customer since 2019. 

The first phase of the partnership covered beef. Emydex was rolled out plant by plant across the beef network, with each site bringing its own processing flows, throughput and reporting needs. When the Pacific site went live in 2025, all six beef plants were running Emydex across the full primary butchery workflow, from the kill floor through liveweight and EID capture, grading, inspection and carcass-level traceability. The legacy CRS system was retired. 

Just as important, those six deployments settled a way of working: close collaboration between Emydex and site teams, phased testing, and a structured go-live that keeps production running. Venison put that model to the test. 

Building venison processing from the ground up 

Venison was a new species for the Emydex platform, so there was no existing configuration to lean on. The Emydex team worked with Silver Fern Farms subject matter experts to define the workflows, product structures and data capture requirements that deer processing needs. 

Both plants operate a manual chain with four Emydex data capture stations on the factory floor: 

  • Bolt station: records each animal at the start of processing 
  • Liveweight and EID station: captures live weights and electronic identification for lifetime traceability 
  • Inspection station: records veterinary and quality inspection outcomes on the line 
  • Grading station: captures carcass grades and weights, feeding supplier payments and yield data 

Each station feeds the plant’s kill line and traceability systems as the chain runs. 

Two go-lives in five weeks 

Rotorua came first, and with it the work of a first-of-species implementation: new workflows, new product structures and extensive testing before the switch. The go-live itself was straightforward. Silver Fern Farms reported that the system settled in quickly, and the few minor issues that surfaced were resolved by the Emydex support team within days. 

Kennington was built on the configuration proven at Rotorua and went live five weeks later. For a processor running multiple sites, this is the point that matters: once a species is proven on the platform, the next plant is faster to deliver, carries less risk and starts returning value sooner.

Rotorua 

Kennington 

Real-time visibility with Emydex BI 

Both venison plants run Emydex Business Intelligence, now standard across the Silver Fern Farms network. User access for every site is managed centrally from a single point, which cuts administration and keeps permissions consistent as the network grows. 

On the operations side, teams work from live dashboards rather than end-of-day reports. A Kill List view shows what is on the day’s kill and how it is progressing. A Carcass Summary breaks down carcasses by destination with weights and averages. A Contamination dashboard tracks rates against the government standard in real time, giving managers the chance to act before a problem grows. Daily Kill Sheets and carcass reports cover traceability and compliance across both sites. 

Across a network of our size, the real value is consistency. Emydex gives our teams a shared operational picture, so they spend less time pulling data together and more time acting on it. Decisions that previously depended on end-of-day reporting can now happen much closer to the floor, and Rotorua and Kennington were able to start delivering that value from the early stages of go-live.”

Matt Ballard, Chief Transformation Officer, Silver Fern Farms

Looking ahead 

With venison now proven across two sites, the groundwork is in place to extend the species further across the Silver Fern Farms network, and the wider programme of collaboration continues. 

Emydex provides production management, traceability and business intelligence software to meat, fish and food processors worldwide. If you are evaluating MES or traceability systems for venison, beef or any other species, get in touch to request a demo. 

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Emydex Industry Standard Systems – Setting the Benchmark for Food Processing Excellence 

For more than four years, Emydex has been on an ambitious journey to reshape how food processors operate around the world. Today, we are excited to share the significant progress of our Industry Standard Systems initiative, a longterm strategic programme designed to redefine efficiency, quality, and scalability across the entire protein-processing sector. 

This initiative marks one of the most transformative chapters in Emydex’s history, bringing together our industry expertise, our customer community, and our commitment to continuous innovation to create solutions that work better, faster, and smarter for everyone. 

Why Industry Standard? 

Traditionally, bespoke system implementations, while powerful, resulted in inconsistent functionality, duplicated effort, elongated delivery timelines, and complex upgrade paths. 

Our Industry Standard initiative directly addresses these challenges. By developing a common, modular, and preconfigured platform, we provide systems that work “out of the box” for core processing operations, while still giving customers the flexibility to add configuration and customisation only where it truly adds value. 

The result is a stepchange for processors worldwide: 

  • Less Time – Rapid deployments with predictable outcomes 
  • Lower Cost – Reduced total cost of ownership through shared, reusable components 
  • Higher Quality – Consistent, robust, tested and proven functionality 
  • Futureproofed – Seamless version upgrades with minimal disruption 

At its core, Industry Standard is about collaboration, alignment, and building once for the benefit of many. 

Built With Industry Leaders 

This project has been shaped handinhand with two of Europe’s most respected meat processors, longstanding Emydex partners. Together, we’ve aligned operational practices and designed a unified platform that now serves beef, lamb, and retail processing environments with unprecedented consistency. 

The outcome is a repeatable model in which up to 90% of functionality is standardised, with just 10% tailored to individual site or customer needs, a dramatic improvement in efficiency and scalability. 

 Industry Standard in Action 

Industry Standard is already operating in live production environments across multiple regions.

In Ireland, the Emydex Lamb Industry Standard is running across primary processing operations, supporting activities including livestock intake, lairage and grading. In Scotland, the platform is also live within Vivers Scotlamb, where it currently supports primary processing operations, with further rollout planned across additional areas of the plant. In the United States, Sustainable Beef in Nebraska is operating on the Emydex Beef Industry Standard within a high-capacity facility designed to process up to 1,500 cattle per day.

 A Platform for Every Protein 

Industry Standard now spans all major protein categories: 

  • Beef
  • Lamb
  • Pork
  • Poultry
  • Seafood

It also includes tailored modules supporting ValueAdded operations, warehousing, and further processing, giving customers a complete ecosystem in a unified, futureready architecture. 

Customer Benefits That Move the Needle 

Our Industry Standard approach delivers tangible value: 

Reusable Components: Accelerate delivery by eliminating unnecessary custom coding. 

Agile Deployment: Predictable timetovalue with fixedscope, fixedbudget implementations. 

Compliance & Traceability: Builtin support for global legislative, food safety, and auditing requirements. 

Operational Efficiency: Realtime data capture, actionable insights, and integrated plantwide visibility. 

Scalability: From a single site to multisite, multicountry, enterprisewide rollouts. 

A Shared Vision for the Future 

Industry Standard is not simply a software initiative; it represents a new strategic direction for the entire Emydex ecosystem. 

By standardising core processes and aligning best practices across the industry, we are helping processors unlock new levels of performance, transparency, and sustainability. 

This is the foundation for the next decade of digital transformation in the protein sector, and we’re only getting started. 

 

Want to Go Further? Let’s Talk. 

If you’re interested in learning how Industry Standard could accelerate your digital journey, whether you operate one site or twenty, we’d love to start the conversation. 

👉 Contact Emydex today to explore how Industry Standard can transform your operations, reduce complexity, and futureproof your business. 

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Staunton Foods & Emydex: A 12 Year Partnership in Precision Pork Processing

When Staunton Foods first partnered with Emydex in 2014, the goal was clear: build a production management platform capable of supporting one of Ireland’s leading pork processing plants with reliability, accuracy, and visibility. Over twelve years later, that decision has shaped a digitally enabled factory environment that continues to evolve and support the company’s growth and reputation for quality.

A Heritage Processor with Modern Ambition

Staunton Foods, based in Timoleague in the heart of West Cork, has long been recognised as one of Ireland’s leading pork processors. Established decades ago and deeply integrated into the regional agricultural economy, the business has always prided itself on quality, animal welfare, and operational integrity.

By 2014, the plant’s throughput and increasing data demands meant its older legacy factory-floor systems supporting kill-line operations, livestock payments, and boning-hall reporting were being pushed to their limits. Stauntons needed a platform capable of meeting modern demands, not just in performance, but also in compliance, traceability, and integration with financial and partner systems.

Introducing a Digital Backbone for the Kill Floor

The first phase of the collaboration focused on modernising kill‑line operations. Emydex introduced structured data capture at lairage, grading, and slaughter points, enabling Staunton Foods to shift from fragmented legacy processes to a single, consistent source of operational truth.

Key benefits from this foundation included:

  • Greater accuracy in livestock payments: Reliable grading, consistent data capture, and clear traceability records helped establish full transparency for producers supplying the plant.
  • A unified view of kill‑line performance: Daily operations became easier to analyse, enabling supervisors to identify issues earlier, reduce variation, and maintain throughput targets.
  • Confidence in compliance and audit readiness: With consistent, structured data in place, Staunton could respond more effectively to retailer, regulatory, and customer audit requirements.

Extending the Platform to the Boning Hall and Beyond

Following the successful stabilisation of kill‑line processes, Staunton Foods extended its Emydex system into the boning hall and downstream production areas. This included support for:

  • Yield reporting and loss identification
  • Stock visibility across raw, WIP, and finished goods
  • Handheld scanning for movement, labelling, and dispatch
  • Packing and palletisation workflows
  • Enhanced traceability linking carcass data to downstream outputs

Operators benefited from simpler workflows and fewer manual touchpoints, while supervisors gained more precise insight into cutting yields, material usage, and batch-level performance.

For a business with high throughput, narrow margins, and strict quality requirements, this transparency has been pivotal.

Integrations that Strengthen the Business

One of Staunton Foods’ most significant long-term advantages has been the integration of Emydex data with financial and partner systems. Over the years, interfaces have been introduced and refined to support:

  • Sage accounting
  • XML data exchange with partner processors and cold stores
  • Automated consolidation of production and commercial data

This connected ecosystem means operations are no longer siloed. Instead, the company benefits from an information flow that joins production, finance, planning, and logistics into a cohesive picture.

Resilience Through Continuous Improvement

What makes the Staunton–Emydex partnership stand out is not only the depth of the system but the consistency of improvements over more than a decade. These have included:

  • Performance tuning to keep pace with throughput growth
  • Software updates and compatibility enhancements
  • Adjustments to accommodate new commercial requirements
  • Improvements in handheld scanning and data‑capture workflows
  • Extensions to reporting and operational visibility

This pattern of steady enhancement has ensured the system never stagnates and continues to evolve alongside Staunton’s needs.

A Perspective from Staunton Foods Management

For us, reliability is everything. The plant moves fast, and we need systems that keep pace without getting in the way. What Emydex has delivered over the years is consistency: consistent data, consistent performance, and consistent support. It gives our team confidence on the kill floor, in the boning hall, and in the office. Emydex has grown with us. We consider it an integral part of how we manage our business today”
John O’Regan, Staunton Foods Management

Unlocking Smarter Decision‑Making

Today, Staunton Foods uses its Emydex environment not just as a transactional production tool but as an operational intelligence platform. Supervisors and managers benefit from:

  • Clearer trend analysis based on multi-year data
  • Better forecasting informed by accurate yields and run‑rate insights
  • More proactive decision‑making informed by real-time visibility
  • Faster resolution of issues uncovered by transparent data flows

This has helped strengthen margins, control waste, and improve operational discipline across the factory.

Supporting a Sustainable, Future-Ready Irish Processor

As the Irish pork sector faces competitive pressures, regulatory expectations, and rapid shifts in market conditions, the partnership between Staunton Foods and Emydex provides a stable foundation for continued growth.

Staunton’s commitment to maintaining a modern, data-driven production environment ensures the business remains resilient, responsive, and aligned with evolving industry demands.

A Partnership Built to Last

Twelve years on from the original go-live, Staunton Foods continues to rely on Emydex as a key strategic partner, not just a software vendor. The relationship is defined by collaboration, mutual trust, and a shared goal of maintaining one of Ireland’s most respected pork-processing operations.

The result is a quiet, steady success story: a modern MES driving real value in one of Ireland’s most traditional industries.

Interested in how a data-driven MES could support your processing operation?
Speak with our European team to explore how Emydex works in practice.
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Forresters Chicken: From Paper-Based Processes to Real-Time Visibility with Emydex

Processing over 1.4 million packs of chicken every week and supplying all major UK retailers, Forresters Chicken operates in an environment where efficiency, quality and traceability are critical to daily operations.

With more than 50 years of history, the business had grown significantly. But as production volumes increased, so did the complexity of managing quality, performance and compliance across the factory floor.

Like many food processors, Forresters reached a point where traditional, paper-based processes could no longer support the pace and scale of the operation.

Before Emydex, all of our quality control processes were paper-based. Everything was pen and paper, reams and reams of paper, and traceability was a nightmare.”

Angus Dilliway-Parry - Owner / R&D Director

Operational Visibility Before Digital Transformation

Paper-based quality checks and manual records made it difficult for teams to gain a clear, real-time view of what was happening across production.

From a management perspective, this lack of visibility impacted decision-making and operational efficiency.

From a management point of view, it was difficult to see the full picture at any one time.”

John Acornley - Finance Director

Without instant access to reliable data, reacting quickly to issues, monitoring performance and meeting production expectations became increasingly challenging.

The Turning Point: Moving from Paper to Real-Time Data

The introduction of Emydex marked a fundamental shift in how Forresters managed production and quality. What was once fragmented and manual became digital, structured and immediately accessible.

The difference between before Emydex and after Emydex is like night and day. The access to information is phenomenal.”

John Acornley - Finance Director

Real-time access to production and quality data transformed daily operations across the business.

Embedding Data into Everyday Operations

Today, Emydex is used consistently across the factory floor and beyond. Production planners, operators and managers rely on the system daily to support informed decision-making.

The planners use it day in, day out. The factory uses it day in, day out. We have screens up giving the staff and managers the data they need.”

Nick Cooper - Operations Director

This visibility extends beyond the physical factory.

Even if you’re not in the factory, you can pull up Emydex information on your computer and see exactly what’s going on.”

Nick Cooper - Operations Director

 

Turning Insight into Continuous Improvement

With accurate, real-time data available instantly, Forresters can analyse performance, challenge inefficiencies and drive continuous improvement.

Production metrics such as packing rates, throughput and giveaways are no longer retrospective. They are visible, measurable and actionable.

This data-led approach supports ongoing improvements across efficiency, yield and performance.

We use it as a tool to improve what we’re doing, efficiencies, line rates and giveaways.”

Nick Cooper - Operations Director

Stronger Traceability, Supported by Partnership

Alongside efficiency gains, traceability has significantly improved, providing confidence across audits, compliance and day-to-day operations.

Equally important is the long-standing relationship behind the technology.

Our partnership with Emydex has been fantastic for more than a decade. They’ve been responsive, innovative and collaborative.”

John Acornley - Finance Director

The value of that partnership extends beyond the system itself, offering accessible support and a personal approach.

Looking Back, Looking Forward

Reflecting on the journey, it’s clear that Emydex has become embedded in how Forresters operates.

Looking back now, you think, how did we manage without it before?”

Nick Cooper - Operations Director

Today, the business benefits from real-time visibility, improved efficiency and a stronger foundation for future growth.

It’s been a really good thing for our business. We really appreciate what Emydex does to help Forresters run efficiently every day.”

Nick Cooper - Operations Director

 

Want to see how real-time visibility and traceability can support your operation?
Learn more about Emydex’s Manufacturing Execution and Quality Management solutions or contact our team to discuss your requirements.

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From Manual Port Marks to Meat Messaging

Preventing Costs & Rejections For Australian Processors Exporting to the USA

A market defined by precision, transparency, and performance, meat processors across Australia are excelling in digital transformation. As export volumes reach record highs, processors are under increasing pressure to maintain full traceability, guarantee compliance, and operate with greater efficiency across every stage of production.

According to Meat & Livestock Australia, 2024 marked a record year for red-meat exports, with 394,716 tonnes of beef and 85,133 tonnes of lamb shipped to the United States alone, and 2025 has shown no sign of slowing down.

As global demand for high-quality meat continues to rise, Australian processors are increasingly turning to technology to streamline exports, especially to high-value markets like the United States. One of the most significant innovations driving this transformation is Meat Messaging, a cloud-based digital traceability system designed to ensure compliance, reduce errors, and improve overall export efficiency.

The Cost of Manual Port Marks

For exporters shipping to the United States, even the smallest error can be costly. A single incorrect or missing port mark can lead to carton rejections, lost revenue, and reputational damage. Manual port marking remains one of the most common sources of non-compliance, often caused by human error during labelling or documentation.

I recall helping the load-out team on multiple occasions, applying pre-printed port mark stickers to cartons as they were loaded into the container. Up to 1,200 cartons in a container, it’s inevitable that some will not be applied correctly or fall off during transit. I remember conversations about product being rejected and discarded simply due to port marks missing.”
Shane Hayes, General Manager – Australasia, Emydex Technology

These manual processes are time-consuming and prone to inconsistencies, creating significant challenges for exporters operating under strict USDA import standards.

Meat Messaging: A Smarter, Digital Solution

Meat Messaging eliminates the need for manual port marks by providing a secure, cloud-based system that digitises the traceability of export cartons. Each carton’s data is recorded electronically and pre-registered with the USDA, allowing import authorities to validate and identify every unit in a shipment before it arrives.

This digital approach significantly reduces the risk of rejections, accelerates customs clearance, and strengthens transparency between processors, regulators, and importers. In an industry where precision and reputation are everything, Meat Messaging provides a modern safeguard against costly mistakes.

Emydex’s Seamless Integration: A Competitive Advantage

Recognising the operational and compliance benefits of Meat Messaging, Emydex has developed a fully integrated solution that connects directly with the platform.

Through the Emydex Manufacturing Execution System (MES), processors can automatically generate GS1-compliant carton labels, capture shipment data, and transmit it directly to Meat Messaging, removing the need for manual port marking and paper-based tracking.

This seamless integration ensures:

  • Accurate, real-time traceability from factory floor to export

  • Reduced manual handling and error rates

  • Improved compliance and audit readiness

  • Faster and more efficient export processes

The result is Fewer errors, lower costs, and faster exports. Emydex clients have reported significant improvements in operational efficiency and compliance since adopting the integration.

Looking Ahead

As Emydex continues to expand its footprint across Australia, our focus remains on helping processors strengthen their operations through smarter, connected systems.

This November, Dave McMahon (CEO) and Shane Hayes (General Manager – Australasia) will meet with customers and industry leaders across the country to discuss how Emydex’s digital solutions can streamline processes, enhance compliance, and support sustainable growth for Australia’s meat industry.

If you would like to connect in person, book a meeting with our team during our November visit and discover how Emydex can help your business enhance operational efficiency, ensure full compliance, and gain end-to-end visibility across the entire export chain.

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