Certification

Poultry Programs provide certification services as well as grading services. These certification services involve determining the compliance of poultry products with specific requirements in a purchase or processing contract for volume food buyers. Demand for this type of certification or contract acceptance work continues to expand.

More and more value-added poultry products are available that look less like whole carcasses and parts. Buyers cannot identify what they have bought as easily as they once could when only ice-packed whole birds were available.

The food service industry continues to expand, especially fast-food establishments. While each company has its own menu identity, all units within a company usually have uniform food purchase requirements and menu offerings are consistent coast to coast.

Government purchasers such as the military, hospitals, and schools utilize competitive bidding to help control their food purchasing and processing costs.

Basically, contract acceptance involves the review and acceptance of poultry and poultry products that have specific desirable attributes required by the buyer. These certification- type examinations usually involve quality factors, but may also include various product-specific characteristics. Depending upon the purchase specification, poultry and poultry products can be examined to determine compliance with the requirements for:

Quality of raw materials, including grade of poultry used;

Product formulation and percentage of ingredients

Processing and fabrication procedures;

Batter/breading pickup and coverage;

Product weight, dimension, temperature, freedom from defects;

Condition of product packaging, such as freedom from cuts, tears, holes;

Metal detection and lab analysis; and

Condition of shipping containers and transportation vehicles.

USDA grading specialists can help food purchasers prepare explicit product specifications and can certify that purchases comply with these specifications. This helps assure purchasers that they are getting what they order, facilitates competitive bidding, can result in overall higher quality food, permits long-range meal planning, and eliminates controversies between the buyer and seller over compliance of the products.

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