Prestage Farms and its affiliates produce more than one billion pounds of turkey and pork annually. They needed a surveillance system to monitor the the facility to make sure the farm is operating safely. Honeywell provided the cameras and NVR the farm was seeking for its operation.
Founded in 1983, Prestage Farms and its affiliates produce more than one billion pounds of turkey and pork annually. From its corporate headquarters in North Carolina, the company now employs some 1,800 associates and contracts with over 400 farm families. It maintains one of the world's largest turkey hatching facilities, and has also expanded across state lines to include pork divisions in Mississippi, Iowa, South Carolina, and Oklahoma.
The Goal: Safe Food Production
As a major part of the world's food production system, the owners of Prestage Farms are dedicated to producing safe and nutritious food for consumers. They pride themselves on the company's long legacy of producing pork and turkey in a responsible, ethical, and humane manner, and are committed to exceeding the expectations of their customers and communities, as well as meeting the highest standards regarding animal welfare they have established for themselves.
Although poultry farming has been typically considered by many to be a relatively lowtech operation, management of Prestage Farms has instead embraced technology as a means of ensuring the highest quality products possible, and they approached Clinton, North Carolina-based security integrator Star Communications for help.
Monitoring Processes and Enhancing Daily Operations
In the first stage of what will be an extensive multi-phase project, the integrator paired
Honeywell's
Performance Series 1080p IR cameras with Performance Series PoE embedded NVRs in several turkey houses and the truck wash bay area. The resulting surveillance platform helps farm operators monitor processes and enhance daily operations. "When we first started talking about installing a surveillance system, we wanted to have cameras and recorders that were affordable and easy to operate. The equipment works in the background, and if an incident occurs, we just access the NVR and pull up the footage easily. It lets us see what happened so we can concentrate on fixing the situation," said Bradley Faircloth, Business Analyst at Prestage Farms. "It gives us peace of mind because it also lets us be upfront with our business operations. It gives us the ability to show that we do what we say we do."
Eric Tew, Security Manager for Star Communications, stated that we decided to go with Honeywell because we've had such good success with Honeywell products and services in the past. "The Performance Series products are competitively priced, and the three-year warranty was a high selling point." The poultry houses generate high levels of dust, the equipment must withstand a challenging environment. "The cameras and NVRs are all selfcontained and fully enclosed, so the equipment is protected. That means more reliable operation and longer unit life," he said.
In addition to giving site managers more flexibility in undertaking their daily chores, the Honeywell system will allow the company to oversee employee activity, as well as more closely monitor the health and activity of the birds.
Future Expandability
Another important reason the integrator chose Honeywell's Performance Series: future expandability. As the project has grown, the cameras and NVRs are expected to be installed in more than 20 poultry houses across the state of North Carolina. Ultimately, the goal is to network those sites with the company headquarters, and Faircloth says the farm's managers are enthusiastic about using the remote viewing capability and incident alerts in the future. "The Performance Series line is perfect for an entry- to mid-level installation, yet it lends itself for growth in the future," he said.
Affordable and Flexible
Because the surveillance project will be implemented in so many diverse locations over an extended period of time, the company found the cost effective Performance Series line to be an ideal fit. "The cameras and NVRs are affordable—and they can all operate on a standalone basis, so once the system is installed, there's no ongoing operational cost," said Faircloth. In addition to giving site managers more flexibility in undertaking their daily chores, the Honeywell system will allow the company to oversee employee activity, as well as more closely monitor the health and activity of the birds. It will also provide more transparency regarding the company's perceived treatment of animals. "Since we can see at any given time how the birds are behaving in different situations, we can know right away if a problem has arisen and get in and address it immediately," he said.
"This installation was different from many conventional security applications because the poultry houses are all located in rural areas with no Internet access," said Eric Tew of Star Communications. "The farmers don't need cameras to address the level of criminal activity that might be present in more populated areas—they simply use the technology to keep an eye on the enclosures and make sure the birds are okay. Ultimately, their goal is to keep food safer."