By Arjan Dietz: Manager Learning & Development, Meyn

With 64 years of experience and estimated 35 percent market share, Industrias Bachoco, S.A. de C.V. is the leading broiler producer in Mexico. Worldwide the company is the sixth largest chicken producer owning brands like O.K. Industries. More than 25000 employees achieve sales of roughly 3 billion US$.

Founded in 1952 by the Robinson Bours family in a little city in the Mexican Sonoran Desert, the company started with commercial table egg production - then, in 1971, stepped into the production of broilers and live chickens. Producing, processing and selling so many poultry products a week is not an easy task and Bachoco is convinced that the quality of the products reflects the quality of the people who make them. They aim to be not only a highly performing company, but also to maintain its social responsibilities and strongly believe in the individual development of their people.

That is why Bachoco has always put great emphasis in keeping up-to-date with technology and training the staff accordingly. The company enjoys a longstanding relationship with Meyn. Twenty years ago, they bought their first Maestro eviscerator, today 12 of these systems are running in their plants together with a variety of other Meyn processing equipment. This large installed base makes it necessary for Bachoco and Meyn to work closely together in maintenance and service questions and Meyn’s maintenance and service philosophy is just coming right.
Raúl Pastrana, General Manager of Meyn Mexico, has recently been asked by Bachoco to help create a uniform level of primary process knowledge in all the Bachoco processing plants. And Meyn answered to the challenge. With the support of the Meyn Knowledge Center in Oostzaan (NL) a custom-tailored Knowledge was developed together with Bachoco integrating both of the companies’ values and visions.

A complete training session was run from June to September in each poultry processing plant. Each training comprised of two days with a total of four sessions. The approximately 230 training hours were split into several sessions with theoretical background of poultry processing from live bird handling and arriving through slaughtering to evisceration with the main focus on the overall understanding as well as the links between the different process steps. Practical exercises and lively discussions gave the training an additional angle. Each participant had to take an exam and, if successfully accomplished, received a certificate. Nationwide a total of 200 key operators from almost all disciplines in the organization - managers, superintendents, and heads of production, supervisors, operators, maintenance, quality, health and live chicken collection have participated in this extensive training program. A major benefit for Bachoco was that the training sessions didn’t interrupt the plant operation because they were planned outside production hours.

PPA’s Corporate Manager, Hugo Edmundo Monterrey commented: “We know that the success we have as a company is thanks to our people who are the essential basis for our plants to continue to work and our organization to remain the market leader. Therefore we need to make them capable and give them the tools necessary. I appreciate the work done, that they were here every day of the training, this has been of great value.“

The training program is part of Bachoco’s School for Process Technology and the Corporate University, the Bachoco Center of Excellence. The Education Committee is led by Hugo Monterrey (Corporate Manager PPAs) and Norma Fonseca González (Leader Project Operations Management) Daysi Ramirez Vicente (Learning, Development and Changing Manager) and Luz Elba Mendoza (Learning and Development Leader). Cooperation partners next to Meyn were JBT and Foodpack. They all accompanied the program as trainers and specialists emphasizing the best way of how to operate production equipment.

The Bachoco Center of Excellence thanks Meyn, Foodpack and JBT for their collaboration and congratulates these first 200 employees who spent time and effort to achieve certification. From today they share the acquired knowledge and will be responsible for the implementation of improvements in our processing plants.
Hugo Edmundo Monterrey: “We are convinced that this certification program will help us to achieve our results and elevate the knowledge level of our employees and their growth opportunities.”

Bachoco thanks and recognizes the excellent participation of Meyn: “We have the honor to invite them to become part of our alliance, and next year to continue with the secondary process. In this way, Meyn helps us increasing our company, to give impulse to the development of our employees!”