The Stun Assurance Monitor (SAM)
The SAM is an innovative equipment development which offers exciting progress in the industry's ability to demonstrate high levels of performance in the stunning operation.
In summary, the SAM provides:
Animal Welfare
The performance of the stun operation is of critical importance at the point of slaughter. The SAM provides a ‘real time’ monitoring capability for the stunner operator, abattoir management and the Official Veterinary Surgeon (OVS).
Stun Operator Training
The comprehensive reporting facility within the PC software supplied with the SAM allows detailed analysis of operator performance. This can make a significant contribution to enable tailored training requirements to be constructed to increase performance standards.
Health & Safety
Analysis of each operator stunning performance and team comparisons can be used to identify fatigue and stress factors, increasing the ability to structure shifts and workloads to minimise risk to operators.
Tong Performance
Analysis by individual tong performance allows the early detection of faults, increasing the ability to maintain performance and avoid operational failure and throughput delays.
Quality Control
The impact of stunning on meat quality can be significant. The analysis of stun profiles can pinpoint operational issues and allow corrective action to be taken, avoiding impact on carcase quality.
Product Provenance
The use of SAM will enhance the provenance of resulting products through an increased ability to assure customers throughout the supply chain that animals were correctly stunned at this critical point within the slaughter process.
HALAL
The Muslim religion will only allow healthy animals to be slaughtered for Halal. The ability to demonstrate that stuns are consistently delivered within agreed parameters will allow Muslims to accept stunning as a pre-requisite to slaughter.
HALAL Approval
SAM is approved by the Halal Food Authority and the UK Halal Corporation who have incorporated SAM as part of their assurance standards.
