Committed To Food Safety

Operating under federal regulations, Cooper Farms works very hard to ensure the safety of all the meat we sell.  In addition to USDA regulations, we have stringent internal controls to ensure our products are safe and wholesome.

These controls include:

• Facilities audited a minimum of once per year by reputable third part Food Safety auditing firm
• Flow Through ovens to prevent cross contamination of raw and cooked products
• Extensive microbial testing of packaging enviroment
• Extensive HACCP programs and validations
• Validation of sanitation effectiveness using rapid detection called CHARM (Bioluminescense)
• Seperate Air make up unit for packaging with HEPA filter system (Clean Air)
• No wood pallets or boxes allowed in exposed cooked product areas, palletizing area seperate from packaging
• Extensive shelf life validation sampling
• No wood pallets allowed in raw area
• In-house auditing of written policies and operating procedures
• Pesticide/Residue sampling on each flock of live turkeys prior to slaughter
• Facility for cooking is located seperate from Slaughter/Deboning Facility, which drastically reduces potential for cross contamination

Surface Pasteurization - The Next Level in Food Safety

All our cooked deli products are packed in two forms.  The first form is, products that remain in the package in which they were cooked.  The second is products that are open roasted or removed from their cooking package prior to final packaging.

Cooper Farms has added another level of food safety protection by making sure the second type of products is SURFACE PASTEURIZED in its final package.  The product, in its final package, goes through a hot water rinse to bring the surface temperature back up to over 160 degrees.  This "kills" any potential microbial contamination on the surface of the product.  The product is then immediately chilled back to below 40 degrees. This makes the product virtually the same as if it had never been removed from its original cook-in package.

Surface Pasteurization does not negatively affect the taste or appearance of the product.  As a matter of fact, there are some added benefits to this process:

• Increased shelf life
• Tighter, more attractive packaging
• Peace of mind for both our customers and our company