Fresh Meat Trends:<br />Farmland Affirms ‘Natural’ Stance With First <br />‘Never Ever 3’ Designation
As more consumers gravitate toward more transparency with all -natural product designations, Kansas City, Mo.-based Farmland Foods is blazing a trail in the pork category by becoming the first-ever company to receive the USDA’s “Never Ever 3” designation for its Simply Natural line of fresh pork products.
To help clarify consumer confusion surrounding all-natural protein claims, USDA developed the “Never Ever 3” (NE3) standard, which ensures:
• No antibiotics in feed, water, or by injection from birth to slaughter
• No growth promotants, natural or synthetic hormones, estrus suppressants, beta
agonists or synthetic growth promotants have ever been administered
• No animal byproducts, such as mammalian and avian, are ever allowed in the feed.
Expressing extraordinary pride as the first pork company to receive the designation, Chris Hodges, Farmland’s SVP of fresh pork, said the new Simply Natural fresh pork line — which includes back ribs, boneless tenderloins, boneless sirloins, bone-in and boneless loins, and butts — “is a great choice for consumers looking for a natural, delicious protein.” The new USDA NE3 certification, he adds, provides “confidence that the product has been held to the very highest standards, and that the process has been rigorously documented, all along the way.”
NE3 is a USDA Process Verified Program that uses the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 9000 series standards for documented quality management systems as a format for evaluating program documentation to ensure consistent auditing practices and promoting international recognition of audit results. Farmland meticulously documents every step in the process, notes Hodges, while working closely with the USDA to ensure the quality management systems are verified and monitored to the exacting standards set forth as part of NE3.
For more information, visit www.farmlandfoods.com.
To help clarify consumer confusion surrounding all-natural protein claims, USDA developed the “Never Ever 3” (NE3) standard, which ensures:
• No antibiotics in feed, water, or by injection from birth to slaughter
• No growth promotants, natural or synthetic hormones, estrus suppressants, beta
agonists or synthetic growth promotants have ever been administered
• No animal byproducts, such as mammalian and avian, are ever allowed in the feed.
Expressing extraordinary pride as the first pork company to receive the designation, Chris Hodges, Farmland’s SVP of fresh pork, said the new Simply Natural fresh pork line — which includes back ribs, boneless tenderloins, boneless sirloins, bone-in and boneless loins, and butts — “is a great choice for consumers looking for a natural, delicious protein.” The new USDA NE3 certification, he adds, provides “confidence that the product has been held to the very highest standards, and that the process has been rigorously documented, all along the way.”
NE3 is a USDA Process Verified Program that uses the International Organization for Standardization’s ISO 9000 series standards for documented quality management systems as a format for evaluating program documentation to ensure consistent auditing practices and promoting international recognition of audit results. Farmland meticulously documents every step in the process, notes Hodges, while working closely with the USDA to ensure the quality management systems are verified and monitored to the exacting standards set forth as part of NE3.
For more information, visit www.farmlandfoods.com.