Cavendish Farms receives national recognition
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
SILLIKER, INC., the leading international network of accredited food testing and consulting laboratories, awarded Cavendish Farms of Presque Isle its Audit Platinum Award April 30. Cavendish Farms scored 99.8 on its September 2009 Silliker Distribution Center Audit. Pictured at a recent awards ceremony are, from left: Sue Moreau, office manager at Cavendish Farms; Robert Halstead, technical sales manager for Silliker, Inc.; Mike Brewer, plant supervisor; and Robin Brewer, assistant plant supervisor. Cavendish Farms owns approximately 7,000 acres of land and farms 5,400 acres in a three-year rotation of potatoes. Fresh potatoes are packed at the Presque Isle facility, which runs year-round and employs 20 full-time people.
PRESQUE ISLE – Cavendish Farms, one of the premier potato farms and packing plants in Aroostook County, was recently honored for its food safety and quality systems procedures.
Silliker, Inc., the leading international network of accredited food testing and consulting laboratories, awarded Cavendish Farms its Audit Platinum Award April 30. Cavendish Farms scored 99.8 on its September 2009 Silliker Distribution Center Audit.
“I’m very proud of this award,” said Scott Smith, farm manager. “We’ve been making upgrades to our packing shed for six or seven years now to increase our ability to do more retail packaging.
“Mr. JD Irving has wanted us to meet food safety and security standards that are acceptable to all of the buyers, so we’ve tried to be among the first to do it. We were the first ones in Maine to be Safe Quality Food (SQF) certified. At one time, we were the only ones in Maine participating in the Silliker Audit. When you tell a buyer you’re SQF or Silliker certified, that carries some weight and it may get you into some markets that you normally wouldn’t get into.”
Silliker Good Manufacturing Practices/Food Safety and Distribution Center Audits combine a host of recognized industry practices and principles, as well as recommendations from the United States Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration, into comprehensive evaluation forms used by Silliker auditors. These comprehensive audit evaluations involve a systems review, as well as a physical assessment of the facility in the implementation of food safety and quality systems procedures.
The audit criteria includes a combination of good manufacturing and distribution practices, good management principles, recommendations from the National Advisory Committee for Microbiological Criteria in Foods and the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Also included in the criteria are recommendations that are required by many U.S. food companies of their distributors.
On-site distribution center audits cover areas including distribution receiving, recoup procedures, loading and receiving procedures, storage, cold chain custody, sanitation, temperature maintenance, “first in, first out” (FIFO) adherence, pest control and food defense. Detailed auditor reports contain both positive comments and areas of opportunity and improvement.
“Distribution centers have to be almost perfect in order to be even eligible for the Platinum Award,” said Robert Halstead, technical sales manager for Silliker, Inc. who came up from Pennsylvania to present the award. “We do thousands of audits each year, and only about 10 Platinum Awards are handed out. It’s a deserving recognition of their hard work; it’s not easy tying everything together. The food industry is very strict about their compliance and regulations, so for a company to do so well shows a lot of dedication.”
Smith said the award reflects positively on the company’s employees.
“It shows their dedication to what we’re doing,” he said. “It shows that they understand the importance of food safety and security which is at the forefront in today’s world. People are worried about the safety of the food that they eat, where it’s been, how it’s been handled and what it’s been treated with.
“[Food safety and security] requires a lot of daily documentation of everything we do right from the day we plant the potatoes in the field, what we take care of them with in the summer, the harvesting and storage process, bringing them in out of storage, and washing, handling and packing them,” said Smith. “Everything has to be documented for traceability. It’s quite an involved process and it requires all of the employees to be on board with it every day.”
Cavendish Farms owns approximately 7,000 acres of land and farms 5,400 acres in a three-year rotation of potatoes. The company currently farms in Fort Fairfield, Mapleton, Presque Isle, Caribou, Limestone and Castle Hill growing Katahdin, Russet, Red Norland, Superior and Yukon Gold potato varities.
Fresh potatoes are packed at the Presque Isle facility, which runs year-round and employs 20 full-time people. During the fall, the number of workers swells to nearly 100.
Products are sold to a restaurant chain on the Eastern seaboard which sells fresh cut French fries, a processor that makes potato salads, and to grocery chains along the East Coast and into Canada. In addition, Cavendish Farms services many smaller local restaurants that need a year-round source for baked and fried potatoes.
“Mr. Irving is dedicated to continually upgrading technology and give us more capacity to do things that the buyers want,” said Smith. “One of the big things that we’ve added at our Prince Edward Island packing plant is steam-packed potatoes. There are smaller potatoes in a bag and you put them in the microwave for eight minutes and they’re ready to eat. We’ll eventually be doing that here in Presque Isle. We’ll be putting in that system probably within 18 months to two years. We’re here for the long term.”
To help celebrate Cavendish’s accomplishment, employees were treated to a barbecue at its packing shed located at 60 Storage Drive in Presque Isle.
“It’s a deserving recognition of their hard work.
The food industry is very strict about their compliance and regulations,
so for a company to do so well shows a lot of dedication.”
– Robert Halstead, technical sales manager for Silliker, Inc.
