Manitoba Pork Council reports the adoption of needle-free injection by the province’s pork producers has resulted in a dramatic reduction in the number of incidents of broken needle fragments in pork.
Needle-free injection uses high velocity and pressure to create an opening, seven to ten times smaller than that of a conventional needle, to instantaneously force the veterinary compound being administered through the skin.
As part of an incentive program offered by Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives through Growing Forward approximately 200 Manitoba pork producers have switched from needles to needle-free injectors to administer veterinary compounds.
Miles Beaudin, the Manager of Quality Assurance and Labor with Manitoba Pork Council, told those on hand last week for the organizations 2012 annual general meeting, response to the program has been strong.
Broken needles has been identified by Manitoba Pork Council’s Canadian Quality Assurance Committee as a big factor contributing to broken needles so broken needles is a big factor, a very large hazard in food safety.
A lot of times in life we do our best to try to minimize the risk but something even better than minimizing is totally eliminating the risk.
With this technology we completely eliminated the risk and we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in broken needles.
Going back several years ago we’ve seen a broken needle occurring every couple of months at certain parts in the food chain, mostly at the packer level and most recently we’ve gone almost a whole year without even having seen even one broken needle at one of our packing plants in Manitoba so this has drastically reduced and most parts eliminated broken needles in our food system.
Beaudin says the adoption of needle-free has been used to eliminate the risk of needle fragments in pork, created unique new marketing opportunities and improved herd health.
He ‘s notes Manitoba is the leader with this technology and he’s confident it will be adopted in more province’s, in more states and throughout more countries.
