M O N E Y M A D E! Giant beef supplier buys computerized cattle tracking system
By Erin Gartner, The Associated Press
DENVER — The nation's third-largest beef supplier signed a multimillion-dollar contract with a Fort Collins company for a cattle-tracking system that uses satellites and retinal scans, a deal sped up after mad cow disease was found in the United States.
Optibrand Ltd. said Tuesday its system would be installed in all six plants owned by Greeley-based Swift & Co., which process some 5.2 million animals each year.
Optibrand's technology would allow cattle to be tracked and identified quickly, said Brian Bolton, the company's vice president of marketing and sales.
That could help agricultural officials trace where a sick animal came from and where it went, a crucial step in a disease outbreak or a terrorist assault on the food supply.
Federal officials using conventional methods needed several days to track the origin of an animal that tested positive for mad cow disease after it was slaughtered in Washington state this month.
With a national database of images from retinal scans, "You will be able to answer those qustions in minutes and hours, not days. And you'll be able to do it securely," Bolton said.
Optibrand's system would allow officials to track where an animal has been, and when it was there, said Keith Belk, a professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University in Fort Collins.
That would let meatpackers determine what animals the suspect animal had contact with, he said.
Swift had been negotiating the contract before the mad cow discovery, Swift spokesman Jim Herlihy said.
"We've been in a test phase for quite a while now, but given everything that's going on, the time is right to tell our customers that we're implementing this and we will have this available," Herlihy said.
Bolton said negotiations were accelerated after the mad cow announcement. He said the contract was worth several million dollars but would not be more specific.
Optibrand's hand-held computer, called an Optireader, uses near-infrared light to take a digital photo of the retina, the back of the eye that contains unique blood vessel patterns in cattle.
Global Positioning Satellite technology automatically records the time and location as the image is taken — information that cannot be changed in the animal's records.
Bolton said the device also can read bar-coded and electronic ear tags, which are commonly used to identify cattle. Retinal scans are more secure, because blood vessel patterns do not change over time, but ear tags can be lost or switched, he said.
Each animal that comes through the Swift plants will be scanned, Bolton said. Information about the animal will then be stored in a database that will enable the company to track individual animals from birth to death. |
