OSI, 2014 Refrigerated Foods Processor of the Year
Find out how this global food provider secured a new supply chain global trading platform, opened a new culinary innovation center and continues to keep food safety top of mind.
Read cover story here.
Read plant story here.
Otto & Sons first meat cart
OSI Group was founded in 1909 as Otto & Sons Inc.
Amick Farms chicken thighs high res
Amick Farms, an OSI company, is a fully integrated processor of premium grain-fed poultry for retail and foodservice.
Cover Photo
(From left to right): The OSI team, Christopher Hansen, corporate executive chef; Kevin Scott, executive vice president, North America; B.K. Girdhar, vice president, product development and technical services; David McDonald, president and CEO; and Mark Richardson, vice president, global supply chain. Photos courtesy of OSI Group.
OSI dry sausage
To maintain a safe and secure supply chain, OSI Group works with its vertically integrated partners from around the world to produce all of its raw materials.
OSI hot dog links on grill
OSI Group is a concept-to-table, full-service processor of hot dogs, lunch meat, dried sausage and cook-in-bag items for foodservice and retail.
OSI hot dog
OSI Group stays on top of trends by introducing the right flavor profile in the right way.
sous-vide packages exiting QC checks
The 5-pound pouches of barbacoa beef run through a flattener that helps pre-shrink the package for the restaurant.
dry sausage on conveyor
Dry sausage logs convey down into the processing area, where they come in contact with human hands for the first time.
grinding
Product shuffles into a grinder that dumps out onto a conveyor and into a blender that mixes in spices, seasonings and other ingredients for 3-4 minutes.
hot water tanks for cooking sous-vide
Here, a wireless crane drops pouches of barbacoa beef into one of the eight cooking and/or chilling tanks.
marinated meat line
At the time of Refrigerated & Frozen Foods’ visit, the 50,000-square-foot facility was producing 4,500 pounds of cooked barbacoa beef per hour along two production lines.
mixer
On the raw side of the plant, the blended emulsions for each dry sausage formula are conveyed into the stuffing room.
mixing and conveying
Blended meat conveys into one of two vacuum stuffers that stuff meat into shirred casings.
OSI old and new building
Both operations at the West Jordan, Utah, facility share a wall and a 5-door receiving dock, however they operate independently.
OSI sign
OSI Group’s West Jordan, Utah, plant features hands-free automation that’s out of this world.
packaged in sous-vide trays
Operators manually pack the barbacoa beef in 5-pound cook-in-bag pouches that travel through an x-ray system, which checks for bones, metal, glass, etc.
racks of sausage spiraling to conveyor
Robots transport product into the production area, where it loads the rack up to a spiral transporter that spins around and empties the rods on to the conveyor one by one.
robot
The dry sausage plant is equipped with 2,800 underground magnets that steer the four robots along “highways” in the hallways.
robot carrying dry sausage
The robots handle about 3,500 pounds of product at one time and come equipped with photo eyes, kickplates and garage door openers.
robot entering dry sausage area
Robots transport product to one of the 15 drying houses (the first five cook, steam cook and dry and the other 10 just dry, no steam involved), where product spends the first weeks of its life.
Gallery Photography
sausage entering QC checks
Operators manually check diameter, color and other quality control facets of each sausage log before it conveys into an x-ray metal detection system.
sous-vide facility
Operators manually trim the barbacoa beef down to 0.25 inches.