Professionals in multiple industries, from food safety to culinary arts, should brush up on modern food processing terminology. Use this glossary to familiarize yourself with new or unknown terms and learn how to communicate accurately with vendors, partner companies, and customers.
In this glossary of food processing terminology, we’ve grouped terms for easier scanning and made it relevant to beginners and experienced plant staff.
AI Risk Modeling – Manufacturers and safety inspection agencies use artificial intelligence to assess large datasets and identify potential safety hazards or quality issues.
Animal Welfare Certifications – A certification from the Global Animal Partnership, Certified Humane, or another organization. These agencies assess a farm to see if it meets the criteria for humane animal treatment. A certified farm can label its animal products as “Animal Welfare Certified” to increase customer trust.
Automation in Food Processing – Using robotics, software, AI, and other machinery to perform repetitive, dangerous, or tedious tasks. Companies often automate sorting, packaging, and quality control.
Cold Chain Management – The process of transporting perishable food in temperature-controlled containers to keep them cold throughout shipping. Manufacturers and their supply chain partners use specialized packaging materials, storage containers, and transportation vehicles to keep items cold from the warehouse to the end consumer.
Food Defense – An industry term that refers to protecting food from intentional harm or contamination. Food defense protects people from intentional attacks on a country’s food supply, designed to affect public health or disrupt the economy.
HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) – A management system that addresses safety by analyzing hazards in the food processing supply chain from raw material production to consumption by the consumer. This system evaluates raw material production, procurement and handling, manufacturing, distribution, and consumption to identify biological, chemical, and physical hazards.
Hygienic Design – Involves designing and engineering food processing equipment, such as industrial blades, to prevent food contamination. Designers consider how a piece of equipment could potentially contaminate a food product with chemical, biological, or physical hazards and take steps to prevent it.
Rapid Microbial Detection – A modern method of detecting microbes in small food samples. It allows manufacturers to get product to the market faster.
USDA Certification – The criteria for equipment and surfaces that come into contact with food. These standards guide how to manufacture, clean, and maintain equipment, as well as prep surfaces used to process food, including your industrial blades.
AMR (Advanced Meat Recovery) – A process that uses machinery to separate edible meat from bones by scraping, shaving, or pressing the meat from the bone. AMR machinery is not permitted to break, grind, crush, or pulverize bones to separate meat, and bones must emerge intact and in natural physical conformation. Meat produced using this method is comparable in appearance, texture, and composition to meat trimmings and similar meat products derived by hand trimming of bones.
Chemical Preservative – Any chemical that, when added to a meat or meat food product, tends to prevent or retard deterioration, but does not include common salt, sugars, vinegars, spices, or oils extracted from spices or substances added to meat and meat food products by exposure to wood smoke.
Mechanically Separated Meat – Mechanically separated meat or poultry is a paste-like and batter-like product produced by forcing the bones and attached edible tissue through a sieve or similar device to separate the bone from the edible meat or poultry tissue. This product is intended for use in the formulation of other products. It is possible for bones to be crushed or pulverized during this process, resulting in a limited amount of bone particles. Because it may contain some bone particles, any product that has been produced using the mechanical separation process must be labeled appropriately as “mechanically separated.”
Captive Bolt – An instrument used to stun cattle before slaughter. The bolt is driven into the animal’s brain, rendering it unconscious.
Carcass – All parts of any slaughtered livestock.
Giblets – Giblets are the heart, liver, and gizzard of a poultry carcass. Although often packaged with them, the neck of the bird is not a giblet. Giblets are not packaged with the original bird; however, they are inspected by FSIS inspectors.
Meat Broker – Any person engaged in the business of buying or selling carcasses, parts of carcasses, meat or meat food products of livestock on commission, or otherwise negotiating purchases or sales of such articles other than for their own account or as an employee of another person.
Meat Byproduct – Any part capable of use as human food, other than meat, which has been derived from one or more cattle, sheep, swine, or goats.
Allergen Control – The processes that food processing plants take to avoid cross-contaminating products with high-risk allergens. It is very important in modern food processing.
Antioxidant – Substance added to food to prevent the oxygen present in the air from causing undesirable changes in flavor or color.
Artificial Flavoring – Artificial flavors are restricted to an ingredient manufactured by a process of synthesis or similar process. The principal components of artificial flavors usually are esters, ketones, and aldehyde groups.
Brine – A strong solution of water and salt. Brine may also contain a sweetener such as sugar, molasses, honey, or corn syrup, for flavor and to improve browning.
Casing – A membranous case for processed meat.
Clean Label – A clean label refers to products with short, simple ingredient lists. Another modern food industry trend, clean label products are usually made with natural ingredients and without artificial colors, flavors, additives, and preservatives.
Emulsifier – A substance added to products, such as meat spreads, to prevent the separation of product components and to ensure consistency. Examples of these types of additives include lecithin and mono and diglycerides.
Netting – Continuous extruded net of flexible plastic material, most commonly polyethylene, which can be made into bags, sleeves, or wraps (example: net over a frozen turkey package).
Shrink Wrapping – Plastic film that shrinks when heated, producing a tight, neat fit; the most popular form of grocery store meat packaging is PVC wrapping with foam trays.
Sustainable Packaging – Biodegradable, compostable, or recyclable packaging materials. It is a growing trend in the food processing industry as businesses look for ways to minimize waste.
Vacuum Packaging– Rigid or flexible containers from which substantially all air has been removed before sealing. Carbon dioxide or nitrogen may be introduced into the container. This process prolongs shelf life, preserves the flavors, and retards bacterial growth.
Digital Twin / Smart Manufacturing – Virtual copies of physical machines, assets, and processes that let manufacturers test scenarios without working with real products. Manufacturers can input various factors into the digital twin environment to monitor how potential changes would impact the final product. For example, a company might explore how switching to an industrial knife blade and consistent sharpening could reduce product waste and improve food processing efficiency.
Farm-to-Table Continuum – A multi-step journey that food travels before it is consumed, from the field or farm, through a processing plant, into a store or restaurant, and finally to consumers.
Global Supply Chain Disruptions – Any event that disrupts the flow of product from the manufacturing plant to the consumer.
Nutrition Labeling – Identification of the nutritional components of a food product, which is required on most foods regulated by the FDA.
Organic Farming – An approach to farming based on biological methods that avoid the use of synthetic crop or livestock production inputs; also a broadly defined philosophical approach to farming that puts value on ecological harmony, resource efficiency, and non-intensive animal husbandry practices. Farmers who wish to have their food operations certified as organic so that they can label their products as organically produced follow standards and submit to inspection by private or state certification organizations.
Organic Foods – Food products produced by organic farming practices and handled or processed under organic handling and manufacturing processes as defined by several private and state organic certifying agencies.
Recall – Voluntary actions carried out by a food manufacturer or distributor in cooperation with federal and state agencies to prevent the public from consuming contaminated, adulterated, or misbranded food products. Recalls fall under three classifications depending upon the severity of the potential hazard.
Renderer – A business engaged in the separation of fats from animal tissue by heating.
Stock Recovery – A company’s removal or correction of a product that has not been marketed or that has not left the direct control of the company. For example, a product is located on pre mises owned by, or under the control of, the company, and no portion of the lot has been released for sale or use.
Sustainable Sourcing – As food processing businesses attempt to reduce their environmental impact, they choose local food and packaging suppliers, as well as suppliers that use sustainable processes to grow food or manufacture packaging. This is a trending term in procurement.
Traceability – The systems manufacturers use to track food products and ingredients from the manufacturing plant to the final customer. It is a crucial system for issuing recalls in cases of contamination, fraud, and other hazard mitigation.
With more than 100 years of food processing industry experience, Hyde Industrial Blade Solutions remains at the forefront of food processing terminology. We incorporate hygienic and ergonomic factors, such as blade geometry impact, into each design to make our Hyde blades safer for all customers. We also pass our knowledge on through helpful resources, case studies, and product datasheets.
Download a food processing data sheet, or explore sharpening services and custom blades for food processing today.