TOWARD A MORE RESILIENT DOMESTIC FOOD INFRASTRUCTURE: PROTECTING WORKERS FROM COMMUNICABLE DISEASES DURING MEAT AND POULTRY PROCESSING

The principal goal of this project is to design andfabricatea novel form of personal respiratory protection, the jet air curtain visor, followed by limited distribution amongmeat and poultry processing workers to solicit feedback. The units will be derived from the design of a consumer product concept operating on the same principles; however,the specific meat and poultry processing working environments require product design modifications. To achieve this goal, this project has two objectives. The first objective is thetechnical and economic adaptation of jet air curtain visor to the specialized needs of meat and poultry processors by partnering with Michigan Turkey Producers.Specifically, we will develop design modifications to allow integration of the jet air curtain concept into the required head protection; assess environmental conditions specific to meat and poultry processing facilities (with partner USDA-ARS Bowling Green); iterate on product designs, taking into account ergonomic and safety factors (with partner Sundberg-Ferar); optimize plasma byproduct mitigation filter materials for the specific environment found within meat and poultry processing facilities (with partner Northern Illinois Univ.). The second objective is toaccelerate the path toward regulatory certification and production scale-up. In pursuit of this objective, this project will use rapid prototyping principles to realize these design modifications into a number of prototypes which will be distributed on a limited basis to meat and poultry processing workers to elicit feedback.