Skip to main content

Strengthening safety in food production with video surveillance

Partner perspective: Oncam

Today's food processing plants share a common goal: to safely manufacture and produce quality food products for consumers to enjoy around the world. Technology can play a vital role in ensuring that quality standards are met, and an integrated video surveillance system can play a major part in meeting compliance and food safety regulations without compromising quality.

Food is an important part of everyone's lives; not only does it contribute to our health and well-being, but it also represents culture, tradition, and togetherness. And when we think about where and how our food is made, cleanliness and hygiene are typically at the top of the list of necessities. The risks associated with the production and sharing of unsafe food are significant, as more than 200 diseases are spread through food and 1 in 10 people fall ill every year from eating contaminated food.

Production facilities put strict regulations and sanitation requirements in place to ensure that the highest levels of food safety are met. But challenges still exist, such as unregulated systems for proper training on food handling and new disease outbreaks, dictating the need for stronger internal processes and diversified technology systems. Video surveillance is a powerful tool that can be used to augment facility security efforts and monitor production and manufacturing.

Oncam's Evolution 05 and Evolution 12 Stainless Steel Cameras are specifically designed to meet the needs of customers operating in extreme environments where resilience is paramount, such as in the food industry. The new Stainless Steel form factor enables the camera to withstand harsh elements, delivering built-in protection against weather, water, and dust, and the housing is manufactured in electropolished marine grade 316 stainless steel, offering resistance to corrosion and maximizing the camera life.

The Stainless Steel Camera is certified by NSF International to NSF/ANSI Standard 169 - Special Purpose Food Equipment and Devices. NSF International standards serve as the benchmark by which all commercial food service equipment products are measured, signifying that the products meet all applicable North American regulatory sanitation requirements. The Stainless Steel Camera has also been approved for use in HACCP-controlled environments and is rated IP69K and IK10. IP69K is the highest ingress protection rating available against water and dust ingress, and the IK10 impact protection rating demonstrates the camera's level of vandalism protection.

When used as a unified strategy for food defense through an integration with the Genetec Security Center unified security platform, Oncam's Evolution Stainless Steel Camera can allow food production facilities to achieve enhanced situational awareness and streamline operations. The Genetec security solution transforms video into valuable and actionable data with video analytics, verifies video tied to intrusion alarms and events and allows users to visualize security environments with dynamic maps. When combined with Oncam's Stainless Steel Camera, this collaboration enables facilities to monitor production line staff and day-to-day operations, pinpoint cross-contamination instances, consolidate reporting across locations and more. This integrated platform takes the act of surveillance from simply an investigative process to a more risk-mitigation focused strategy. 

Learn more about how Genetec and Oncam solutions work together to help you safeguard your extreme environments.