812-Lancast>r Fanning, Saturday. January 24, 1996* A tour of Saucier’s Egg Plant fascinates Lancaster County Poultry Ambassador Kendra Weaver as she watches the process of getting the egg from underneath the chicken to the dining plate. Tom Fox, quality control manager at the plant, is at left, and George Georges of the Lancaster County Poultry Association Is on the right. From Chicken KENDRA WEAVER Poultry Ambassador LITITZ (Lancaster Co.) Imagine walking into a huge building. The smell of disinfectant reaches your nose as the steady hum of machinery frustrates any effort to cany on a normal conver sation. While the cool air nips at your nose watch as thousands of boxes of eggs are loaded into the back of a huge trailer bound for New York. These are some of the fascinat ing sights and sounds I experi enced recently on my tour of Sauder’s Penn Dutch Eggs in Lit itz. Tom Fox, quality control man ager at Saudi’s, escorted George Georges and myself on an in formative tour to view the “be hind-the-scenes” steps of an egg packaging plant The first room we walked into was the cooler and packed with thousands of eggs, from hundreds of farms, stacked taller than my self. Every egg was sorted into a dark or light flat depending on their weight Cases of large and jumbo eggs, which are 48-pound case weight or larger, were piled high on shades of bright oranges and reds while those that fell into the category of 36-pound case weight sat on dark green and black flats. As we walked through the walls of eggs, Tom Fox explained that Sauder’s receives approxi mately 10-15 percent brown eggs and a small percentage of organic eggs. The birds, which are quali fied to lay organic eggs, must be allowed to roam free while con suming “natural” feed made from grains never touched with pesti cides and insecticides. Another special egg at Sauder’s is the “Golden Egg” marketed for its rich supply of beta-carotene. In terestingly, the golden color is achieved by extract in the chick en’s diet from a Cyan pepper na tive of Mexico. Continuing our tour, we walked into die packaging room. Only eggs from one lot or one farm are done at a time. Near the beginning of the century, women were em ployed to inspect and package the Underneath The To The Dining Plate eggs and were considered excep tional for completing 39 cases of eggs per hour. Now however, us ing equipment from Diamond In ternational, Sauder’s is able to process 550 cases of eggs per hour. eggs are mechanically hoisted onto a conveyor belt and spun through a 200-gallon washer kept between 1 IS and 120 degrees Fahrenheit with a pH of 11. After visible extraneous residue has been removed, the eggs are sent through steaming rinse water kept between 13S-140 degrees Fahren heit This insures that all invisible pathogens have been killed. The eggs are then rolled under the scrutiny of “B-pickers.” These employees manually pick out cracked eggs and those with other visible defects. After receiving a fresh coat of mineral oil to seal up the egg shell pores and prolong shelf-life, the eggs are carried into a dark, curtained room. Light beams up through the bottom of the eggs as employees with spe cial electronic markers stamp any with interior problems. The computer is able to separ ate these eggs because of the marking made by the electronic marker. Next, each egg is indivi dually weighed and carried by ma chinery to the appropriate place where it is deposited into the cor rect “loading dock.” Every “load ing dock” scattered along the out side of the long machine (that transports the eggs) is suited with egg cartons, some of them for jumbo, extra large, large, medium and small eggs. Every carton is stamped with the date, the farm number the eggs came from, and the station number in which they are packaged. If any trouble arises, Sauder’s is able to immediately trace the eggs back to the farm from which they came. After the eggs are deposited into the cartons, employees pack them into boxes, crates, carts, or whatever the order happens to be. It was obvious how consumer friendly Sauder’s Eggs is. They al ter their packaging method de pending on what the buyer has re quested including the kind of car ton the eggs are shipped in. According to federal law, egg packaging plants are permitted to have a 5 percent crack rate on the eggs they ship to consumers. However. Saucier's has their pack aging method at a zero percent crack rate. The cracked eggs they sell to other companies at a cheap price are then sold by those com panies for the regular grocery store shelf price. Even though Sauder’s is sacrificing profit, their reputation to package guarranteed high-quality eggs for die consum er is priceless and irrefutable. Sauder’s Eggs is one of the only, if not the only, company in the nation to have Hazard Analy sis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) installed in the machin ery of the packaging plants. This system guarantees immediate at tention to any part of the plant malfunctioning and halts entire packaging procedure if the prob lem sighted cannot be fixed in minutes. Sauder’s Eggs is the largest egg producer-processor in the east coast and fifth largest in the na tion. They have six plants in three states including Maryland and Ohio. They export along the At lantic Coast from Maine to North Carolina. Internationally, Saud er’s eggs have reached Puerto Rico, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Hong Kong. SEE YOUR NEAREST (3 I\EWHOLLAI\D DEALER FOR DEPENDABLE EQUIPMENT & SERVICE PENNSYLVA Abbottstown. PA Messick Equipment RD 1, Box 255 A 717-259-6617 Annville. PA BHM Farr Equipment, Inc. RD 1, Rte. 934 717-867-2211 Carlisle. P, R&W Equipment Co. 35 East Willow Street 717-243-2686 Elizabethtown. PA Messick Farm Equipment, Inc. Rt. 283 - Rheem’s Exit 717-367-1319 Halifax, Sweigard Bros. R.D. 3, Box 13 717-896-3414 S.G.Lewis & Son, Inc. 352 N. Jennersville Rd. 610-869-2214 1-800-869-9029 MARYLAND Ceresville Ford New Holland, Inc Rt. 26 East 301-662-4197 Outside MD, 800-331-9122 Hagerstown. MD Antietam Ford Tractor, Inc 2027 Leitersburg Pike 800-553-6731 301-791-1200 Ag Industrial Equipment Route 1, 50 N. Greenmont Rd. 401-658-5568 NEW JERSEY Bridgeton. NJ Washington. NJ Leslie G. Fogg, Smith Tractor & Inc. Equip., Inc. Canton & Stow Creek 15 Hillcrest Ave. Landing Rd. 908-689-7900 609-451-2727 609-935-5145 IfiVHOLLAUD SfcI\EWHOLLAI\D Credit Company \k'*‘ Honev Grove. PA Norman D. Clark & Son, Inc. Honey Grove, PA 717-734-3682 Loysville, PA 717-789-3117 New Holland. PA A.B.C. Groff, Inc. 110 South Railroad 717-354-4191 Olev. PA C.J. Wonsidler Bros. R.D. 2 610-987-6257 Pitman. PA Schreffler Equipment Pitman, PA 717-648-1120 Tamaaua. PA Charles S. Snyder, Inc R.D. 3 717-386-5945 PA ■k. MD Woodstown. NJ Owen Supply Co Broad Street & East Avenue 609-769-0308
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