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Quality & HACCP
Quality egg products start with high quality raw materials. This is why Ballas Egg only breaks nest run (farm run) or graded eggs that are less than 30 days old. We do not handle any “chex” or under-grade eggs in our plant. Ballas Egg agrees with the concept of humane treatment for animals. For this reason, we have voluntarily chosen to become certified under the United Egg Producers Certified program. This science-based animal welfare program addresses various aspects of husbandry and animal care that we support. As a certified participant, we agree to purchase our shell eggs only from suppliers who are also certified under this program.
At Ballas Egg we incorporate quality into everything that we do. We call this integrated approach our Six-Point Quality Assurance Program. In this approach we continuously assess our entire process and the facility for potential risk. This includes raw materials, the production processes, and the environment.
The central focus for all of our quality programs is our HACCP Plan, which we first implemented in 1998. In this plan the entire facility is subdivided into 14 distinct operations that cover every aspect from the receiving of raw materials through the shipping of finished products.
Flow diagrams are used to evaluate each process to determine what type of control is needed at every step and whether a food safety risk might exist at that point in the process. In a step, if a single loss of control could result in a food safety risk, this step is identified as a Critical Control Point (CCP).
When we developed the Ballas Egg HACCP Plan, we identified four critical control points in our process:
- Pasteurization of liquid egg
- Heat treatment of Dried Egg Whites
- Foreign material prevention in Dried Egg Yolk and Whole Egg
- Foreign material prevention in Dried Egg Whites
The HACCP Plan details specific criteria for rejection at all CCP’s. The plan clearly identifies how to handle product in the event that there is a loss of control at a CCP. All HACCP records are reviewed and then stored in an organized manner so that our plan can be audited or reviewed at any time.