Peco’s Journey to a Paperless Future

Emily Adkins remembers her first day at Peco Foods like it was yesterday. She started her role as continuous improvement manager at the Fulton Street processing plant in Canton, Mississippi, on Jan. 16, 2023. One of the first things she noticed, however, was that certain areas of the plant were filled with binders of papers.

“I remember asking the HR manager, ‘Why is there so much paper? Why isn’t anything on the computers?’” Emily recalls. “And then I realized it was my job to do that.”

Emily spent her first four months at Peco leading the Fulton Street processing plant’s efforts to go paperless. The plant’s quality checks and production checks, as well as its policies and procedures, are now tracked and documented digitally.

Using minimal to no paper aligns with Peco’s commitment to practice sustainability. Meanwhile, the new paperless system also helps to improve food quality and efficiency. Instead of tracking safety checks and other inspections with pen and paper, the team members at the Fulton Street plant have traded in their clipboards for tablets. They now use Safety Chain, an automated data collection system that has revolutionized the plant’s approach to ensuring food excellence.

When a quality check indicates that a product doesn’t meet Peco’s specifications, automatic alerts are sent directly to the quality management team members who need to know.

“That way everyone can react more quickly,” says Tabatha Milligan, corporate director of food safety and quality. This quick response not only saves team members time but also helps to reduce food waste.

“We’re able to pull trend reports, see areas of opportunity and track performance of customer products,” Tabatha adds. “Before, if I wanted to know what happened seven months ago, I had to go into a dusty records room and dig through boxes. Now I can have information within seconds versus hours.” Emily admits she was a bit intimidated by the task of converting the Fulton Street plant’s processes to a digital system. After all, she was new to the industry. But the former middle school teacher was up for the challenge.

“It was actually the best way, I think, for me to come into this new industry,” Emily says. “I had to learn every part of the plant from the front to the back. Every single little thing. So I’m grateful for the experience.”

Emily taught middle school during the COVID-19 pandemic, where she gained experience working with various digital platforms. As a former teacher, she’s also skilled in differentiation, which means she understands that not everyone learns new concepts the same way, and she can adapt her teaching methods to fit different learning styles. She did exactly this when helping other team members learn how to use the new system.

“Once people were comfortable with the technology, it was a breeze,” she says. “There was hardly any pushback at all. It was great.”

Tabatha says she helped team members adjust to the new system by reminding them that the technology was more familiar than they may have initially thought.

“I said, ‘If I see you guys sitting in the breakroom playing on your smartphones, then you can do this,” Tabatha says. “That helped ease everyone’s mind because essentially these tablets are just a big smartphone.”

Plans are in the works to implement the Safety Chain system at other Peco processing plants, including the facilities in Bay Springs, Mississippi, and Batesville, Arkansas. Converting the Fulton Street plant to a digital tracking system was a huge undertaking and still requires occasional updates when the plant adopts new specifications or welcomes new team members. But Emily says it’s worth all the hard work. Every day she sees how the new system is allowing her fellow team members to work more efficiently as they strive to process high-quality products.