2021
"The Nebraska MEP facilitated the expertise of Dr. Grace Danao and the Food Processing Center.
Even with the physical barrier of the pandemic, the Nebraska MEP and FPC found a workable solution to identify and solve our facility issues, which enabled us to maintain our reputation as a trusted supplier to the food industry."
Rich Needham, Vice President of Operations
Equalizing temperatures for meat tempering facility
Glenn Valley Foods of Omaha, Nebraska, was founded in 2009 by Gary Rohwer to provide high-quality beef and chicken products to a wide range of customers including restaurant owners, grocery stores, and ultimately the consumer. Whether their products are utilized as the key ingredient for a new menu offering or direct by the consumer, they can be trusted for their convenience and versatility while maintaining high-quality flavor. Products are sold under the Gary’s Quick Steak brand and can be found in over 5,000 grocery stores. Glenn Valley Foods products are also served in many national restaurant chains.
The Challenge
In 2019 Glenn Valley Foods moved into a brand new state-of-the-art meat processing facility. After the move, Glenn Valley Foods observed reduced yields due to uneven tempering in their new tempering room. They needed to better understand the temperature uniformity (i.e., cold vs. hot spots) within the room and adjust their process. For help, the Glenn Valley Foods team turned to Nebraska MEP, part of the MEP National Network™.
MEP's Role
Glenn Valley Foods had observed issues with their new meat tempering facility, so Nebraska MEP enlisted the Food Processing Center (FPC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The FPC planned to visit in early 2020 to map the temperatures in their new tempering room. However, due to the pandemic, the FPC could not visit their facility and Glenn Valley Foods could not accept outside visitors to mitigate the spread of the virus. As a workaround, Dr. Grace Danao of the FPC provided Glenn Valley Foods’ Vice President of Operations Rich Needham and his staff some wireless temperature and relative humidity sensors and advised on how to use them to map room temperatures. The data were downloaded and analyzed by Glenn Valley Food leadership and staff to evaluate strategies and new equipment needs to mitigate temperature fluctuations.
 | Over $500,000 in retained sales |
 | Invested $95,000 in heat pumps to remediate uneven room temperatures |
| Over $700,000 in annual savings due to reduced spoilage, energy costs, and water usage |
