Economic value and cost of automated on-line poultry inspection for the USbroiler industry

The US Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) uses visual (organoleptic) methods to inspect individual carcasses on-line at US broiler slaughter plants. The current system is very labor-intensive and is directly related to industry production capacity. Continued expansi on of production capacity within the broiler industry requires additional s taffing of FSIS inspectors. However, FSIS is currently under a hiring freez e. Also, FSIS wants to redeploy on-line inspectors to more pressing tasks, such as the oversight of industry compliance with food safety and pathogen reduction standards. This study evaluates the economic value and costs of u sing an automated inspection technology in place of visual organoleptic ins pection in the US broiler industry for the period 1997-2001. The results in dicate the US broiler industry would gain from $1.55-$2.57 billion in disco unted throughput value over the next five years if automated inspection is used in place of organoliptic methods and line speeds are operated at 100 b irds per min. The results also indicate FSIS could redeploy approximately 1 342 inspectors to other in-plant tasks by adopting automated inspection, bu t would have to pay additional expenses related to the installation of the technology in slaughter plants. These additional expenses range from $32 to $59 million in discounted cost over the five-year period, and could be pay ed either in part or in whole by the broiler industry. Published by Elsevie r Science Ltd.