Vol 1~Iss 5, Meat Packing Journal, November~December 2014

The international magazine for the meat and poultry industry

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the history of keeping it cold

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a snap shot of ippe atlanta 2015

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advances in weighing

MEAT PACKING J O U R N A L

meat recovery poultry A look at the world's fastest g r o w i n g protein and the opportunities for processors

mpj looks at how to extract value from every part of the carcass

November~december 2014 volume 1 | issue 5 ISSN 2054-4685

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Editor's choice

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om burnett rants about the failings of western consumers to moderate their desires and understand the wider cost of the choices they make. Power, privilege and protein, page 18-19

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new body in the US is paving the way for new production and processing technologies to be introduced into the market, by exploring what the impact might be on the full supply chain.

The aim is to protect the routes to market by ensuring all new technologies are compatible (or can be made so) with domestic and international regulation. The benefits of this new body could be massive, giving the US a technological advantage over other countries that haven’t a system in place to enable the development processing systems in line with the complicated myriad of red tape.

A diverse group of representatives from technology companies and the US beef, pork and lamb industries is tackling the critical question: What steps can the meat industry take to ensure that the introduction of new production and processing technologies does not interrupt trade?

“The US meat industry is a global leader when it comes to advancements in quality, safety, efficiency and productivity,” said Forrest Roberts, chief executive officer of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA). “Our goal as an industry is to adopt new technologies in a manner that is consistent with continuing to grow exports. To meet this objective it is imperative that we continue to work together as an industry in a proactive manner.”

Roberts was recently elected chairman of the Meat Industry International Stewardship Advisory Council (MIISAC), which was formed with exactly this goal in mind. Its primary focus is to foster better communication, coordination, and collaboration at all levels of red meat production, processing and marketing so that new technologies are introduced in a manner that minimises disruptions in exports without stifling the development of next-generation technologies.

To ensure that MIISAC draws upon experience and expertise from a broad range of meat and livestock sectors, it includes representatives from the Cattleman’s Beef Board, NCBA, National Pork Board, National Pork Producers Council, American Lamb Board, the feedgrains sector, meat packing and export trading companies, technology providers, American Meat Institute, North American Meat Association and the US Meat Export Federation (USMEF). Roberts and Bessac have appointed working group chairs for operations, strategy, and communications to carry the work of the council forward.

As new technology products are developed, MIISAC will collaborate with the companies introducing the products to US market to assess the potential benefits and costs of their adoption to the red meat industry and develop strategies for minimising impediments in export markets that have not approved the technology. The body will address if regulatory approvals need to be secured in key international markets.

How will this impact consumer confidence? Is there an avenue, such as the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CODEX), for establishing an international standard? How do we address foreign markets that have no functioning regulatory process? In carrying out its mandate, MIISAC will not be setting industry policy, nor will it approve or disapprove new technologies. “The goal is definitely not to serve as a standard-setting or policy-making body, but rather to provide a broad, forward-thinking perspective on how a new technology will impact our industry once it is approved,” Roberts explained.

It is common sense that this body should be mirrored in other countries and an international panel developed to give local expertise to local bodies.

Rhian Owen rhian@meatpacking.info @Meat_Packing

November~December 2014 | Meat Packing Journal | 3

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C o n t en t s

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News the latest news from around the world and across the industry

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Poultry Chicken is fast becoming the world’s favourite meat. But upping production isn’t as simple building more facilities. Daniel Bennett speaks to leading experts in the industry to find out how the industry will keep growing without compromising the quality of its products.

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meat recovery Making use of every part of the animal is key to maximising profits. Tom Burnett discovers the technology that is letting processors get the most from every carcass and looks at some of the consumer challenges

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refrigeration The power of the cold is an aged tested method of preservation and remains an integral part of the food supply chain. Technical editor James Chappelow looks at the history and development of refrigeration methods and how they changed the meat industry

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ippe preview A quick look at the essentials of the leading annual meat and poultry production show

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weigh & label Regulations on weighing and labelling are strict and consently changing. Tom Burnett looks at the underlying principles to the legislation and the technology on offer to help processors stay within the law

www.meatpacking.info

November~December 2014 | Meat Packing Journal | 5

OVER 100 YEARS OF EFFECTIVE STUNNING Accles & Shelvoke established in 1913 are world leaders in the manufacture of captive bolt humane stunning equipment. Products include the “CASH� Stunning range designed for the humane slaughter of small animals up to larges bulls. With over 90 years of experience, Accles & Shelvoke has developed a strong client base working with Government organisations, major food retailers, veterinarians, meat technologists, large and small meat plants worldwide.

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expansion for global meat trade in 2015

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S Department of Agriculture’s ‘Livestock & Poultry World Markets and Trade’ report has been released, showing a modest gain for major meats across the world.

Beef and veal: exports are forecasted at nearly two percent higher to a record 9.9 million tons in 2015.

Gains by leading exporters Brazil and India have more than offset declines in the United States and Australia, both hindered by tight supplies and high prices due to drought conditions.

Asia, particularly China and Hong Kong, accounts for the majority of demand growth. Much of the growth in Hong Kong is through the gray market which channels ‘banned’ US and Brazilian beef across the border and into mainland China.

US beef production is forecast to continue to decline, down two percent to 10.9 million tons as lower slaughter more than offsets increased weights.

Despite robust global demand, tight supplies and higher prices are expected to drive US exports three percent lower to 1.1 million tons.

Pork: After declining two years, global exports are forecast to rebound and increase 4% to 7.2 million tons on strong demand from China. China’s liquidation of breeding sows will slow production growth; its imports are forecast to reach a record 1.0 million tons on rising consumption. Although not mentioned in the

Long way for a steak russia: Russia is turning to Zimbabwe for beef as it continues to look for other sources of meat since banning most food products from the USA, EU, Canada, Norway and Australia in its ongoing tit-for-tat move against the West for imposing sanctions on it over the crisis in the Ukraine.

Joseph Made, agriculture minister for Zimbabwe, said Russia will soon dispatch a technical team to Harare which will examine the technicalities of beef exports and possible areas of cooperation in the agriculture sector.

“One of the commodities that Russia has asked us to supply is beef and other related agricultural products,” he said. “This is a chance to revive the Cold Storage Company which used to be very active in the livestock and meat sector.”

Minister Made said Russia has also offered to provide pharmaceutical and www.meatpacking.info

report, if China honors a deal to supply Russia with pork, this too could increase imports to China.

A ban on shipments from key suppliers as well as disease-based restrictions will drive Russia’s imports lower despite increased shipments from Brazil.

US production is forecast to rebound five percent to a record 10.9 million tons on increased slaughter and heavier weights. Greater supplies and lower prices will benefit US exports which are forecast to increase three percent to 2.4 million tons on Mexican and Asian demand.

Broiler Meat:Global exports are forecast to expand percent to a record 10.9 million tons as a result of gains by Brazil, the United States, Turkey, Argentina and Thailand. Imports by Russia are expected to decline as domestic production increases.

Brazil and Argentina are poised to capture a greater share of the Russian market as a result of the recent ban on broiler meat shipments from EU, United States, Canada, Australia and Norway.

US production is forecast to rise three percent to a record 17.8 million tons on increased slaughter, heavier weights and greater demand due to broiler meat’s price competiveness vis-à-vis red meats. Despite the loss of the Russian market, U.S. exports are expected to rise one percent to a record 3.3 million tons as shipments are shifted towards Mexico, Africa and East Asia.

veterinary assistance to the country which will ensure that Zimbabwe produces good quality meat.

dna detection methods can spot 0.1% horsemeat Great britain: While the big question of how horsemeat contamination entered Europe’s food chain last year still remains a mystery, an evaluation of three DNA detection methods proves that low levels can be identified in mince meats.

A recently published UK peerreviewed paper describes a study which exams three ways of detecting low concentrations of the horse DNA target in beef mince: the polymerase chain reaction-CE approach (described in the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs Project FA0220) and commercially available kits from Neogen BioKits and PrimerDesign.

The results show that the three approaches all have the potential

and capability of reaching a limit of detection (LOD) of less than 0.1 percent of raw horse meat in a raw beef background.

Providing that laboratories apply quality procedures and good laboratory practice for DNA extraction and application of molecular biology methods, it is reasonable to expect that the LOD of <0.1 percent should also be readily achievable, states the study.

Although the scandal proved to be one more of food fraud than food contamination, the presence of horsemeat in products containing beef mince shocked consumers in Ireland and the UK where horses are looked upon more as pets than a food source. In addition, the scandal showed flaws with the EU’s food traceability programme.

According to Dalton Philips, chief executive of UK retailer Morrisons, the key issue that needed addressing was “the complexity of the food supply chain”.

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combating antibiotic resistance

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report released released by the US government is calling for the “responsible stewardship of antibiotics” in both animal and human usage to combat a growing resistance by bacteria to medical treatment.

In statements both the US National Turkey Federation and the National Chicken Council – two industries which have been criticised for their use of antibiotics – give their full support to the report.

For years scientists throughout the world have been voicing concerns that an overuse of antibiotics could lead to bacteria evolving which are resistance to antibiotics, creating what some call ‘superbugs’.

The report, Combating Antibiotic Resistance, which was released by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST, addresses this growing challenge.

Responsible stewardship of antibiotics requires identifying the microbe responsible for disease (ideally with rapid and inexpensive diagnostics); administering the most effective antibiotic at the appropriate dose, route, and time; and discontinuing antibiotic therapy when it is no longer needed.

“Optimising the use of our current antibiotics in human healthcare and animal agriculture will extend the longevity of these life-saving medicines and maximise their benefits,” states the report.

The evolution of antibiotic resistance in bacteria is occurring at an alarming rate and is outpacing the development of new countermeasures, according the US Center for Disease Control. Indeed, the World Health Organisation recently warned that we risk entering a “post-antibiotic” era unless we act now.

PCAST recommends measures to strengthen antibiotic stewardship, boost surveillance, and facilitate the development of new drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines to combat this growing crisis.

However, even with improved stewardship and surveillance, it is critical to develop new antibiotics, diagnostics, vaccines, and other interventions at a rate that outpaces the emergence of resistant microbes.

A robust antibiotic pipeline is essential for creating

Russian company plans huge expansion RUSSIA: A Russian meat producing giant has announced it will substantially increase the production of poultry and pork in a region bordering the Ukraine by investing 4 billion rubles (about US$104 million) into poultry, pork and fodder production.

new antibiotics to replace those being steadily lost to antibiotic resistance. Establishing this pipeline and successfully addressing the rise in antibiotic resistant bacteria will require coordination across governmental, academic, health, agricultural, and private sectors.

The National Turkey Federation stated: “We are only beginning to evaluate these documents, but we are pleased that doctors are finally being recognised to be as important as – or even more important than – veterinarians and farmers in preventing the emergence of antibiotic resistance.

“Everyone has a part to play in keeping antibiotics effective for people and animals, but in recent years there has been an extensive debate about what can be done on farms to combat resistance and far less discussion about what should be done in hospitals and doctor’s offices. The turkey industry remains committed to the safe, proper use of antibiotics in treating people and animals.”

Dr Ashley Peterson, National Chicken Council vice president of scientific and regulatory affairs, agrees.

“Preserving antibiotics’ effectiveness, both in humans and animals, is a responsibility chicken producers take seriously. To that extent, we have supported FDA’s Guidances #209 and #213 that will phase out by 2016 the use of medically important antibiotics in food animals for growth enhancement.

“We also support FDA’s proposed Veterinary Feed Directive (VFD) that ensures that all antibiotics administered to food producing animals are only done so under the care and prescription of a licensed veterinarian.

“Two classes of antibiotics that FDA deems critically important to human medicine, especially for treating foodborne illness in humans—flouroquinolones and cephalosporins—have already been phased-out of chicken production for a number of years.

“We look forward to working with the new task force as we continue to implement these new FDA policies, especially as the work relates to defining metrics for success and conducting more research in the area of antibiotic resistance.”

Cherkizovo Group, Russia’s largest meat and fodder company, has been present in the Voronezh region for the last eight years. During this time, through growth and acquisition, the company has seen remarkable expansion. In 2013 alone it produced 14,000 tonnes of pork, 95,000 tonnes of poultry and harvested nearly 103,000 tonnes of crops on 27,000 ha in the region.

According to Chairman of the

8 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

Board Igor Babaev, the company will launch additional poultry slaughtering lines this year which should increase chicken output by 15,000 tonnes in 2015. In addition, within two-years new chicken grow-out houses will increase the amount of chickens raised by another 10,000 tonnes of sellable weight.

To expand pig production, Cherkizovo plans to build in region seven pig feedlots with a total www.meatpacking.info

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capacity of more than 35,000 tonnes of marketable pork. Implementing the project will enable Cherkizovo Group to triple pork output at regional facilities to more than 50,000 tonnes live-weight per year.

“By investing 4 billion rubles, we will substantially increase production levels,” said Babaev. “This prospect means further development, more jobs and higher wages, and will help ensure the country’s food security.

Marel appoints head of global innovation iceland: Marel has appointed Vidar Erlingsson as Head of Global Innovation. The position is new at Marel. The Head of Global Innovation will become a member of Marel’s Executive Team and report directly to Arni Oddur Thordarson, CEO of Marel.

Arni Oddur Thordarson CEO: “This appointment reflects Marel’s ongoing commitment to innovation.

As Head of Global Innovation, Vidar will be responsible for driving and implementing the global innovation vision and strategy of Marel across the organization, prioritizing further innovation activities and shorten the “time to market”.

“Vidar has shown great leadership talent and I am convinced that he will in his new role successfully lead the innovation team. Under his leadership the team will continue to bring breakthrough solutions to the market.

In addition to increased yield and throughput, Marel solutions increase quality, safety and sustainability of food processing. Continuous flow of innovative solutions is a key driver of Marel’s organic growth”.

Erlingsson was instrumental in developing the Sensor X technology within Marel and played a key role in bringing the solution to commercial success. The Sensor X plays essential role in increasing food safety and quality as many of the most forward looking global food processors use the solution to detect bones and other contaminants. The technology is now moving into other areas such as minced meat fat analyzes and control unit in precise cutting of poultry, meat and fish. www.meatpacking.info

Vidar has a M.Sc. degree in engineering from DTU in Denmark and a B.Sc. degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Iceland.

Meat processor signs major China deal australia: Australian-based Bindaree Beef has signed a major new contract to airfreight shelf-ready beef cuts to supermarket chains in China.

The contract was signed in Shanghai

by Tim Sullivan, China manager for Bindaree Beef, who is participating in a trade mission with Minister of Agriculture Barnaby Joyce.

This deal adds to Australia’s recent success in China. On the back of this trade mission, the country is expected to sign a free trade agreement in November which will give preferential access to Australian beef exports.

Bindaree is building on an existing agreement in which Norco established a supply chain for distributing fresh chilled Australian milk to supermarkets in major Chinese cities, including Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou.

The Australian company is taking beef cuts that have traditionally been used in the manufacturing of hamburger patties in the US market and selecting, preparing and packaging individual cuts that suit the palate of affluent urban Chinese consumers for traditional style Chinese cooking.

“The opportunity to cut, pack and price label beef to go directly on the shelves is a wonderful valueadding opportunity to supply niche customers in China, which is exactly where Bindaree needs to fit in the supply chain,” said Sullivan.

china pork for russia china: The world’s largest pork producing nation will soon be able to start profiting off East/West tensions and export pork to Russia, according to China Daily.

Russia’s Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Service (VPSS) has decided to allow pork

imports from China, said Sergei Dankvert, head of the VPSS. Dankvert added that the VPSS is in the process of preparing a list of Chinese companies that would be allowed to supply pork to Russia.

Li Guoxiang, deputy director of the Rural Development Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, said: “China is the world’s biggest pork producer and has a welldeveloped pork processing industry, which has implemented strict quality control on its exported pork products.

“This move is a sign that Russia is no longer just importing China’s vegetables and fruit,” said Li. “The nation will purchase more Chinese meat and farm products to reduce supply pressure while the diplomatic relations between Russia and the West remain unclear.”

This deal is a response to sanctions imposed on Russia by the United States and European Union over the on-going Ukrainian crisis and the shooting down of a Korean airliner by suspected Russian-supplied missiles over the Ukraine.

Russia has imposed a yearlong ban on all meat, fish, poultry, fruit and vegetables from the EU, USA and other nations, leaving it scrambling for suppliers, while previous – now banned suppliers – scramble for new customers.

UK processor pleads guilty in horsegate Great britain: A UK slaughterhouse owner has pleaded guilty to charges relating to last year’s horse meat scandal, called Horsegate by the local media.

Peter Boddy, 65, admitted selling 50 horses for meat but failing to keep proper records to show who bought them. He is also charged with failing to comply with food traceability rules over at least 17 horse carcasses at his abattoir in West Yorks, England.

EU regulations require meat to be tracked from source to customer.

Last year British MPs complained about how slow the investigation was being carried out. Now, over a year and a half later, Boddy is the first person to plead guilty.

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BIG

P IC T URE

Photographer Mishka Henner captured this stricking image of Coronado Feeders feedlot in Dalhart, Texas while on assignment for Vice magazine. “It struck me as soon as I saw it," said Henner. “Coronado isn’t the largest feedlot in America. With a capacity of 60,000 cattle, it’s less than half the size of some of the biggest.

“The configuration of pens, runoff channels, and its lagoon of cattle bodily waste is much the same as any other feedlot. What these elements represent is an efficient method for maximizing the meat yield of a living animal in the minimum amount of time for the highest profit."

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www.meatpacking.info

BIG

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P IC T URE

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BAADER LINCO

Life in the 12 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

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Left: Baader's vision quality classification system ClassifEye helps assess quality downstream and optimise production downstream

GLANCE DOWN a supermarket aisle is all it takes to work out the identity of the UK’s favourite meat. Rows of chicken crowd out the alternatives, ousting the likes of beef and lamb into ever narrowing shelves. According to the British Poultry Council (BPC), by weight poultry accounts for half of all meat purchased in the UK. To meet this demand, as well as some exports, some 870 british birds are bred, hatched, reared and slaughtered in this country and some 400 million birds are imported each year to meet the nation’s demand. Across the Atlantic, the story is the same too - towards the end of the last year chicken overtook beef to become the the most popular meat product bought in the States, and its popularity shows no signs of waining.

At an economic level it’s plain to see why consumers - who are always on the look out for good value - are so fond of bird meat. In the UK, the price of beef and lamb has risen by 51 and 54 per cent respectively since 2008.

In the same period poultry prices only climbed 23 percent. The same is true in North America, where shrinking cattle inventory drove beef prices up even further. In the same time period “lean meat” became such a powerful buzzword that it even helped to turn around the fortunes of turkey production. In basic terms, there’s few

Chicken is fast becoming the world’s favourite meat. But upping production isn’t as simple as building more facilities. Daniel Bennett speaks to leading experts in the industry to find out how the industry will keep growing without compromising the quality of its products

poultry lane www.meatpacking.info

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more cost-effective, healthy ways to get the protein our bodies need.

There’s little indication that this growth will stop either, especially when you consider the burgeoning demand for meat in countries like China and India. Factor in that chicken meat produces the lightest carbon footprint and the stage looks set for our feathered friends to take over the world’s dinner plates. So how do producers and processors keep pace with the public’s hunger? And in a industry that’s recently been hit with contamination scares (campylobacter), how do they increase production without lowering standards?

As part of the BPC, Richard Griffiths, the director of food policy, is helping to draw the roadmap that will help navigate industry’s continued growth . “The biggest challenge facing the industry in the UK and globally is an increased demand with fewer large slaughter houses,” he explains. “So the challenge is to ramp up throughput in existing premises. A typical large chicken house will do something like 1.8 - 2 million birds per week, whereas a few years ago they might have been doing half that.”

He adds that 5 companies produce around 80 per cent of the retail chicken sold, using just 34 major slaughter houses, processing and cutting plants. It’s a success story so far, but how does Griffiths foresee the industry continuing to grow with the limited numbers? “It’s about really getting efficiency into the system. It’s about getting the kit to match demand while at the same making sure we’ve got an affordable product at the end of the day.” Efficiency isn’t the only problem facing the European industry though.

Above: Baader's air chilling system helps slow the growth of bacteria Below: BOC's rapid chilling tunnel can be added to existing air-chilling chilling lines

battling bugs

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ccording to a report by the Food Standards Agency in August, 59% of whole birds tested in UK shops had traces of Campylobacter, a naturally occurring bacteria that doesn’t harm the chicken but causes food poisoning in humans. It’s a problem since the infective dose (the number of cells required to cause an infection) is remarkably low at just 500 to 1,000 cells. It’s also remarkably tough to kill in chicken since it’s what scientist describe as “genetically mobile”. Fighting it is the scientific equivalent of a game of whack-a-mole. As a result it’s been problem for decades, while other contaminants like Salmonella have been wiped out from chicken meat thanks to vaccines. It’s worth noting that correct handling and cooking of chicken meat prevents infection, but that doesn’t mean the BPC have given up fixing the problem…

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Liquid Nitrogen

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Campylobacter of the chilled chicken is reduced by 90% www.meatpacking.info

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1. Onsite Liquid Nitrogen tank (99.999% pure, -196ºC) 2. Super insulated vacuum liquid nitrogen line 3. Rapid Surface Chilling tunnel 4. Chicken conveyor line entering tunnel 5. Chicken conveyor line exiting tunnel

Solutions may be on the horizon. “There are two big hitters right now that could get involved in the processing stage,” reveals Griffiths. The first approach is called Rapid Surface Chilling as is being developed by BOC and Bernard Matthews Ltd. In their system, a tunnel is added to the production line in which the surface of the bird is quickly chilled with a cryogenic vapour. Since campylobacter likes a warm host, this rapid cooling stops the bacteria in its tracks. Recent trials processed 6,000 carcasses using the technology and found that it reduced campylobacter counts by 90-95 percent.

The other technology firmly on the BPC’s radar is SonoSteam. The system fires a combination of ultrasound - waves of high frequency sound - and steam at the bird as it passes through the line. The ultrasound disrupts the layer of air closest to the surface of the meat, letting the hot steam take its place. This allows the hot vapour to rapidly probe the microscopic pits in the surface of the meat killing any microorganisms lurking there. This one-two approach means the hot steam isn’t in contact with the bird long enough to alter or damage the meat.

Both are fascinating attempts to beat a bug that’s been plaguing the industry for decades, and both could see their way into production lines in a few years, but in the meantime Griffiths remains realistic. “For now we can progress by making sure the chain is hygiene efficient,” he says. “The more efficient we can be, the less time there is for the campylobactor to worsen.” Shortening the time a bird spends on a production means that it warms up less, that there’s less chance for cross contamination and that there’s less time for the bacteria to grow. Unfortunately in practice, speeding up the production line is no small feet.

Cargill foods is currently spending US$56m (£34m) to revamp its chicken processing facilities in the UK with the goal of boosting efficiency.

High heat transfer to give rapid chilling of the chicken surface to kill the Campylobacter from the cold vapour

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Rapid surface chilling tunnel

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“We’ve invested in big improvements in precision cutting, weight, grading and high speed packing,” says Chris Hall, director of the fresh chicken business at Cargill. “What we’re trying to do as we configure our facilities is make sure that we’re able to be flexible. One thing you can be sure of is what we’re doing today will be different to what we’ll be doing tomorrow. So we’ve tried to balance efficiency of today with flexibility for the future.”

One of the shifts Hall is referring to is the changing make up of the British household. At one end there’s the large family that wants large packs at a competitive price and at the other there are single person households that need smaller options. “We’re packing a wider range than we’ve ever packed before so our machinery needs more flexibility than ever,” says Hall.

“Probably the most significant step forward in productivity is the robotic weighing and packing system.”

Once example of this kind of system is made by Ishida Europe. The Multihead Weigher measures 14-20 chicken breasts at once. In a split second, it then runs the maths (it can handle unto 20,000 different combinations at once) to calculate which pairings will make the package measure up nearest to the 500g mark, for example. This technique improves the accuracy of the pack weights by up to one to two percent. In isolation this might not seem like a staggering achievement, but Ulrich Nielson the Director of Business Solutions at Ishida Europe explains just how quickly these efficiencies can add up. “One weigher typically handles 55 portions per minute. If it’s measuring out 500 g packs, that means in one minute 27.5kg of packs are produced. Saving 1 per cent of that amount in overweight means saving 16 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

Above: Baader's Linco 656 chicken breast deboning system

275g of chicken every minute. In an hour that’s adds up to 16.5 kilos.” But if there’s mismatch in the fillet sizes the machine has some wiggle room. It can be set up in such a way that if it can’t make a 500g pack accurately enough out of the raw materials, it will jump up a level to 1000g packs so that you can have a one production line measuring out separate packs at once. Alternatively if a new order comes in for smaller packs, for a restaurant chain for example, the line can be calibrated to separate out the ideal cuts. To make the process fully autonomous, the weigher can also be paired with robotic arms that separate out the breasts and presenting them the right way up in their packages. And for an added level of detail, there’s an X-ray system that can be bolted on upstream to scan for any potential bones in the cuts that the arms can remove them before they’re weighed. “It’s one of the biggest margins that poultry producers can capitalise on at the moment, but not just because of overweight,” enthuses Nielsen.

“Extra giveaway is just one side of it. The weigher also has a much smaller footprint - 9m2 - than the traditional belt weighing method. Not only is this cheaper to accommodate if you’re building a new property, but the cost of keeping it chilled and cleaning its over its lifespan it is much lower”. Alongside more efficient cutters and deboners it’s easy to see how Cargill will benefit from this kind of intelligent weighing system, especially since the goal of this expansion so to increase the amount they “service the retail trade” in the future. But as Hall points out, it isn’t just about upping their efficiency: “Productivity is important. It’s a never ending quest because of the costs of things will always rise around you. But you also want the consumer to have a consistent experience so they buy the same pack all the time. This comes down not just to weight but the grading of the chicken too.”

grade a

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hile Cargill looks to squeeze more out of its plants than ever before, it’s also looking to create a consistent product. Of course there’s lots of ways to do this - from improved cutting machines to precision eviscerators - but it isn’t all just down to hardware. Smart software can help too. Classification when it comes to whole birds is vital. ‘A’ grade whole carcasses are the ones we tend to find lining supermarket refrigerators, free from any blemishes brought about the by production processes. Traditionally it’s a manual job, but Baader Linco have developed ClassifEYE, a system that they believe www.meatpacking.info

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doesn’t just improve grading, but can actually helps improve efficiency across the production line.

The software powering ClassifEYE is trained on the production line using two cameras, one at the front and one the rear. Using a clever algorithm it scans each bird for any “flaws” in the carcass as it travels down the line. It’s looking for defects like broken wings, bruises, feathers and skin flaws. A producer can then tell ClassifEYE the threshold for what it believes counts as a grade A chicken and so on. If throughputs are going to accelerate to feed the growing worldwide demand for chicken then quality control as a manual job will become even more difficult. “As speeds rise, this is becoming impossible if you just have a person standing there,” says Pernille Thulin Product Management Coordinator for Baader Linco, “if they get tired or look away for a second, the standard falls but now you can be absolutely sure that the machine is treating every bird the same.” Early adopters of the technology haven’t just seen the grading of their chicken improve, but it’s a system that’s actually helped the entire production line evolve over time says Thulin.

“You can use it for upstream and downstream improvement. You can see where certain damage might be related to a bad stun or a bad kill, and that will help you build up a more consistent www.meatpacking.info

Above: Marel's fixed weight packing system the Roboflex in Cargill's Yazor Road plant

line. That’s where producers really can start earning money from this system” Indeed the more people use ClassifEYE the smarter it becomes with feedback constantly helping to inform software updates over the life of the equipment. “Of course next we’d like to create piece grading for individual cuts,” adds Thulin, “this could be huge, and it goes really well with our philosophy that we want to see every bird used to its best.”

The poultry industry is in an enviable position. As demand booms their biggest concern will be improving efficiency while upholding their standards. Given the kind of advances in automation and robotics we’ve seen over the last few years, it doesn’t seem like that will be a problem for those able to invest in their poultry houses. Even chicken’s oldest nemesis Campylobacter could find its days numbered as cutting-edge science makes its way into machinery. And this is good news for all of us for two reasons. The first is that In 2012 the poultry meat industry is estimated to have contributed £1.4 billion to UK GDP - a not insignificant amount that will continue to grow. And the second reason is that as the issue of food security rears its head in the face of the world’s growing population, poultry is set to play a pivotal role in insuring that meat is still on the menu.

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Power, privilege and protein Western consumersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; position at the top of the global economic pyramid grants them the ability to make almost unrestricted choices about their diet.

However, Tom Burnett argues, demanding only prime cuts at the lowest possible price wastes resources, means animals are killed needlessly, and ultimately puts personal preference ahead of a sustainable, equitable, global economy

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ver the last month, I’ve been speaking to experts in meat harvesting about how their technology works, how it can be used to generate the most value from carcasses, and how it should be integrated into supply chains. One of the things that struck me working on these pieces is how much these industrial processes parallel the practice of a good home cook. A good cook will be able to portion a chicken, trim the carcass for small cuts for a risotto or stir fry, and turn the rest into stock. A really good chef, like St John’s Fergus Henderson, will find a way to prepare every part of an animal in the best possible way, from nose to tail.

The motive for this might be cost, an environmentalist’s dislike of waste, or appreciation of the value of every cut. Industrial meat harvesting and separation replicates these attitudes and practices, but on a scale of hundreds of thousands of animals a day.

But that is not how meat harvesting is presented in the Western mass media. Perhaps most famously, mockney celebrity chef and erstwhile supermarket spieler Jamie Oliver gave a demonstration of meat harvesting that consisted of blending visually unappealing cuts of offal.

His audience of children were suitably horrified, as were the parents viewing at home.

Oliver’s intentions were no doubt good, and parts of his argument correct. At the time, too much of food prepared for children at school was perhaps too high in fat, salt and sugar.

But this is an argument about how educations budgets are allocated to school meals, and how targets are set and monitored for meal providers.

It’s not an argument against using technology to make use of every part of the animals we kill. It is also, whatever Oliver’s intention, part of the sales pitch for higher margin cuts at supermarkets, like his then employers.

The technology of meat separation is just one small part of a global supply chain that delivers Western consumers a huge array of choices at historically low prices. In the UK, where Oliver filmed his demonstration, consumers spent 8.9 percent of their income on food, according to the USDA. In the US, consumers spent even less, just 6.8 percent. In major global cities like London or New York, it’s possible to find restaurants offering dishes from every nation on the planet. Even in village supermarkets in the West, virtually any ingredient can be found.

But that is not the case everywhere in the world. Proportions of income spent on food jump into double digit percentages as soon as you leave the global north. In Pakistan, for example, consumers spend an average of 45.4 percent of their income on food; in Guatemala

the proportion is 35.6 percent. Those are highs, but they are not outliers. When you see a map of those proportions, like that prepared by Washington State University, the sources of that inequality are clear. The winners are nations of former slaveowners, traders and colonisers. The losers are the countries who were ransacked by the slave trade and looted by 19th century empires. Today, the winners erect tariff barriers that protect their own citizens’ incomes and subsidies that protect their food industries from fair competition. The losers are pushed to turn over land for commodity exports, like soy for meat animals, and to base their economy on the most fragile and menial of jobs.

The impact of that inequality can be measured in infant fatalities. In developed nations, the number of people living with food insecurity is in the low millions. The percentage of children suffering from malnutrition is so small as to be not worth measuring. In the developing world, more than hundreds of millions of people live with food insecurity.

Levels of childhood malnutrition routinely run into double digit percentages. In both of the examples given previously, they are over 40 percent.

The UN Food and Agricultural Organisation’s Livestock, Environment and Development Institute’s research shows that more than two-thirds of all agricultural land is devoted to growing feed for livestock, while only eight percent is used to grow food for direct human consumption. Farm land wasted on feed for animals that are not then eaten takes food from those children’s mouths. Their parents (and, sadly, their own) jobs are made fragile and menial by unequal trading relationships that see supply contracts whipped away to suit the whims of Western shoppers.

Too many Western consumers refuse to see the food industry beyond their personal choices.

They congratulate themselves on recycling their wine bottles or spending a fraction of their— comparatively—immense wealth on hybrid cars.

But they demand select cuts of meat, sold as cheap as possible, in a way that wastes the world’s resources. They chose to have animals bred and killed for food, but then refuse to eat them.

No one industry, no single political policy, is going to fix the damage done by centuries of plunder. But the modern food industry does offer the technology to feed all of the world’s population, to leave no child stunted by malnutrition or dead from starvation. If that industry is held back by the squeamish whims of spoilt western shoppers, it will never achieve its full potential.

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A moral role for meat harvesting Marel in the Netherlands recently put together a series of white papers arguing for the close integration of meat harvesting with meat processing. Tom Burnett summarises the papers, and speaks to two of the authors.

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ver three papers, the experts from Marel on meat harvesting technology lay out the history of the technology, its optimisation, and the role meat harvesting can play in feeding the world’s growing population in a sustainable way.

Contrary to some of the arguments presented in mass media, the Marel team argues that society has a moral duty to make the best use of the raises it breeds for food.

developing the technology

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alking to Frans van der Steen, meat technology and development manager at Marel, offers an overview of the technology: “There are three main methods of separation.

In linear systems, bones are placed into a linear cylinder. A plunger creates pressure, causing friction between the bones. Meat comes off the bone because of this friction. The cylinder has a perforated wall, and the pressure pushes the meat out through this. Then, you can increase the pressure with the cylinder, and push out finer marrow and other products.

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“A rotary system looks like a meat grinder.

Bones are broken by means of an auger and meat is pushedthrough the perforated wall of the system. Rotary systems have higher yield but can produce lower quality meat, as bone marrow will also be pushed through the system.

“Rotary systems are generally used in poultry and linear mainly in red meat. If you put pork necks in a linear system, they'll fit. For a rotary system, they would be too big. For chicken, the pieces are small enough for a rotary although they can also be processed in linear systems for higher meat quality.

“The third system is the belt separator. The system has a rotating drum with small holes, with a belt running around. The product gets stuck between the belt and the drum, and separates the meat from small bone particles and sinews. It’s used for sieving small particles from meat fraction, not for harvesting meat from bones..”

Marel’s Geert Leenen, project manager for development of the Pro-Series, a range of meat harvesting systems, explains the technological background in more detail in his paper. Leenen describes linear press systems like Marel’s as an

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advance on previous rotational systems. He says, “Whereas rotational systems focused exclusively on processing poultry meat, linear systems allowed for the processing of pork and beef as well. As a result, the harvested meat product range expanded considerably. Besides this, the lower pressure applied in linear harvesting led to a great boost in meat quality compared to the meat products from traditional rotating harvesters which have a more crushing and grinding effect, operating under high pressure.

“Innovations between 1983 and 1995 were mainly driven by the demand for more capacity and higher yield. Technically, this meant higher pressure was being applied to the bones to scrape off even more residual meat. As a result, the grade, and thus the market value of the meat harvested, declined steadily as yields rose.

“By the mid-1990s, a pivotal shift took place in our thinking about meat harvesting as all efficiency driven parameters were thrown overboard in favor of meat quality. The lower pressure applied in linear systems drove the enormous quality improvements over rotational systems, which damaged the carcasses substantially more by applying higher pressure,

thus adding more bone material to the meat.

“Thus quality became one of the core values, which has been central to the industry ever since. Despite the somewhat lower yields due to lower pressure being applied, nothing was lost in terms of overall value. After all, scraping less meat off the carcass in a more controlled way results in a higher grade residual meat product that represents a higher market value per kg/lbs.

So the value lost at one end of the production process, was more than compensated for at the other. Meanwhile, consumers profited from a higher-quality end product. Thus, producers of residual meat products were able to improve their reputation in the meat chain and the consumer market significantly.

“With quality now firmly and indisputably established as the industry’s core value, developments since 2000 have been marked by further optimizing yield whilst retaining the high quality standards established earlier.

One important recent step towards improving yield at good quality levels was the patented development of two-phased meat harvesting in the 2000’s. A linear system and a rotating harvester (or two linear harvesters) are run

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consecutively (or in tandem). The linear system ensures optimal meat quality while the second system scrapes the bones clean, thus achieving optimal yield.

“The latest generation of linear press meat harvesters on the market can process over 10,000 pounds (4700 kg) of bones per hour and turn it into respectable quality meat. Recently newly developed linear meat harvesters have been introduced, equipped with a patented piston system. These new machines provide adjustable meat quality with an extra yield of 4-6% (of the input weight). At the same time, the cost of maintenance has dropped and the payback time, based on additional revenue, has been reduced to less than one year.”

supply chain integration

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s Leenen makes clear in his paper, the wider food processing industry was slow to make the most of meat harvesting technology’s ability to extract higher value from recovered

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Above: Linear system, ProFive (high pressure) 1. Bones are fed into filling chamber 2. Pressure causes bones to rub meat off and pass through filter 3. Bones are retained and discharged

meat. His colleague, Jan Meerdink, specialist in meat harvesting and deboning, takes this up in his paper. He argues that, “our thinking about residual meat remained traditional for a long time, where ‘bones in, meat out’ seemed to be the slogan. Differentiation regarding raw material and meat quality in the past was virtually non-existent. On the input side, all bones were being processed simultaneously, without any distinction whatsoever in terms of bone quality. On the output side, this resulted in a rather average, uniform meat quality, which, although much higher than rotational press meat quality, was still far from its optimal value.

“It was not until the mid-1980s that a first, tentative shift in thinking of the meat industry took place towards differentiation and value upgrading of residual products. In the new millennium, focus of the production process has turned to maximal output at consistently high meatquality levels. Even today, however, some opportunities remain unused, which could be taken with only a few changes in the approach of the meat-harvesting process.

“Value upgrades for abattoir waste or byproducts, such as bones, blood and pig’s legs, are mostly performed by specialized companies rather than being general practice in the meat-processing industry. However, this situation cannot be sustained for much longer: even today, megatrends like healthy aging, sustainability and emerging scarcity of resources require thorough knowledge of by-products to be present within the entire production chain.”

Meerdink argues that the meat industry can efficiently meet demand trends by diversifying, capturing and upgrading the value of its by-products. That, he argues, will require a production process that is both comprehensively diversified and extremely flexible.

He continues, “One already existing type of diversification can be achieved on the input end of the meat-harvesting process, by classifying input bone material into either A-, B- or C-category bone for each species (pork, beef, lamb) according to the amount of residual meat present on the bone after deboning. If these different quality streams are separated during the production process, producers can offer more tailored quality, volume, and pricing.

Further optimization of meat production can be achieved by specifying the final product and adapting the other process variables such as press time and pressure. Here, it is important to adjust the type of bone to the desired meat quality as well as to the final product in which the residual meat will be processed.

“Unfortunately, the option of separating www.meatpacking.info

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bones according to quality is not yet being used by all residual meat producers, leading to suboptimal value creation. Selecting the correct bone quality (A/B/C) on the input side may, for example, prevent the use of ‘remedial’ additives to combat quality defects at a later stage of the production process. A highly competitive global food market, in which scarcity of raw materials and resources will play an increasingly large role, will force producers of MSM to be highly rational and calculating about the input available to them from the very first steps of the process.

“On the output end of the process, added value can be created from the by-products, provided they are no longer regarded and treated as waste products. Especially bones can be upgraded after meat separation since they are a valuable source of marrow, collagen, and phosphates to, for example, the medical, pharmaceutical and feed industry. Emerging global phosphate shortages in the near future make phosphate extraction more than just an economic opportunity; it is becoming a moral duty as well.

“Besides diversification on both the input and the output end of the production chain, there is also a growing need for flexibility in the production process. While many producers today still opt for a model of uniformity and mass production, often for export, production to customer specifications will gain ground in the future. Thus, producers of residual meat will no longer get away with offering only one, uniform quality to an almost unchanging customer base.

“Another form of flexibility is driven by the globalization of the meat and raw materials markets. To survive and flourish in a globalizing market, producers of residual meat will have to produce more market specifically, strongly taking into account volatilities such as daily prices and demand volumes. This then requires in-depth and high-quality knowledge in the fields of market analysis, technology and optimization, knowledge that needs to be available on a daily basis.

“The current lack of knowledge and attention on the part of many residual meat producers and the existing decoupling between the links 24 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

Above: Linear system, ProFive (low pressure), Identical steps as in high pressure, but with an extra step after step 2: main and counter plunger work together in a patented sequence

in the chain may be an impediment to radical diversification and flexibility. To many meat producers, producing residual meat is not a core activity, leading to broken links with the final product in some cases. The future, however, is in full chain integration, for a number of pressing reasons.

“First, chain integration promotes economies of scale which are simply unattainable to scattered, individual producers. Fine-tuning between the links in the chain will lead to major savings. Moreover, meat might currently be subject to no less than nine transfers from slaughterhouse to shop, with only four steps necessary for optimal value creation. Companies integrating separate parts of the chain thus realise huge, necessary savings in process costs, transportation costs and refrigeration costs, among others.

“Besides enabling substantial savings, chain integration has the potential to be the answer to society’s loud call for sustainability. First of all, yield per animal (pork) can increase by as much as 4% through the use of modern process technology. This brings the industry one step closer to fulfilling its moral duty to feed the population and make optimal use of resources.

Moreover, once the production process from hog to hot dog includes fewer steps, lower transportation costs and thus fewer conserving additives to the meat will result. Yet another vital contribution to overall sustainability.

“For the very same reasons, chain integration is beneficial for public health: meat passing faster through fewer hands is safer meat. Thus, chain integration may play a large part in reducing the risk of future food crises. Since healthy and safe meat is the market demand for the future, chain integration and full traceability of every step in the production process should go hand in hand.”

traditional butchery industrialised

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he series of white papers ends with a plea from van der Steen for a new approach to old traditions of butchery and slaughtering, what he calls ‘optimal carcass valorisation 2.0’. To achieve this, he says, takes not just an overview of the production of mechanically separated meat as a commodity, but of the whole supply chain.

He says, “The chain from hog to hot dog includes many food-technological factors which have great and direct impact on the characteristics and the perceived quality of the final meat product. Characteristics such as color, www.meatpacking.info

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structure, tenderness and bite all depend on the handling of these factors at various stages and times in the chain.

“Farmers and slaughterhouses are the first link in the chain. Factors such as breed, pedigree, feed, animal stress during the slaughtering process and meat aging at this stage, largely determine the quality of the raw material entering the chain.

Next, the bone material left over after deboning, reaches the residual meat producer, who turns it into MSM (mechanically separated meat), a semi-finished product. In this process the MSM producer exerts great influence on fiber length, damage to muscle fibre structure, calcium content, meat protein percentage, as well as moisture and collagen content through the pressure applied in the harvester, filter size used, filling level and capacity of the chamber as well as the marrow content of the meat.

“The final processor then designs the final product, influencing remaining factors such as the muscle-marrow-protein balance, water and fat binding capacity, taste and bite. At this point, the previous process steps have all left their mark on final product quality. The degree of muscle tissue damage during harvesting, for example, affects water-binding capacity, fatbinding capacity and bite of the final product.

“Purchasing MSM leaves processors with only relatively few factors to be influenced in their own part of the process, with all the other factors already having been influenced at the earlier stages of breeding, slaughtering or meat harvesting. Potential (partial) neglect of these factors by the other parties previously involved can only be remedied by the processor using relatively expensive additives in order to still

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Above: A Marel belt seperator Below: Rotating system, RotoMeat 1. Feed screw conveys input material through pre-sizer 2. Vane pump transports bones into separating chamber 3. Meat extrudes through chamber`s filter 4. Auger discharges bone residue through restraint

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achieve the product specifications required.

Thus, awareness and traceability of how each quality-determining factor was handled at every previous stage of the process is of the greatest economic and societal interest to the meat industry and, ultimately, to the consumer as well.

“It is exactly this holistic approach, this integral insight into the intrinsic quality of the raw material, into one's own production process (for MSM producers), and into the product specs and applications desired by the customer that enables maximum value addition to the chain, throughout the chain. It should be noted here that a high degree of industrialization of the production process reinforces the increase of efficiency substantially.

“MSM producers with insufficient information about the quality of their raw materials, run the risk of significant value loss, besides obvious quality risks. Likewise, not knowing the specs of their customers’ final products may incur unnecessary cost for either party, often both.

A good example is the production of chicken nuggets and frankfurter sausages, snacks often

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made from separated chicken meat and pork.

“The residual meat harvested from chicken breast cap carcasses is often uniformly processed in frankfurter sausages at a relatively low unit price, whereas expensive chicken breast fillets are often being shredded to be processed in chicken nuggets. But, it would be distinctly possible to harvest a high-grade meat from the breast cap carcasses first for use in the chicken nuggets. The remaining lower-grade meat could then be used for the production of frankfurter sausages, making both products more efficient and therefore cheaper, without noticeable loss of quality. At the same time, the expensive breast fillets would thus retain their highest possible market value.

“The above losses are purely economic and could be easily prevented by producers of MSM through product traceability, demand orientation and quality differentiation in the process. This can be achieved by entering into partnerships with both suppliers and customers, with whom agreements can be made about specific bone types (and hence qualities), such as pipe bones, rib bones or backbones. Customers should inform their suppliers of their exact residual meat usage and their meat-quality requirements.”

moral duty to meat recovery

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an der Steen says, “Mechanically separated meat is often sold as a commodity, with a percentage of protein and fat. You know its poultry meat, but you don’t know the source, you don't know what the quality is, so you can’t fine tune your end product. If you team up with the chain before and after, you get better quality than if you buy as a commodity and try and solve in a recipe.

“This makes the traceability much simpler, as it makes it a lot easier to know the source of the meat. You know what animal it is coming from.”

Meerdink adds, “Mechanically separated meat sold as a commodity, is a mix of various producer countries. That’s first a problem of traceability. But it also means the length of transport, and the age of the product can be older. That reduces quality and adds to cost.

“If you work with a local supplier, they’re closer, you get better quality, and can optimise the recovered meat to your own end product.”

The authors are not just arguing for an improvement of the meat separation process.

They argue that meat separation, as a means to optimal valorisation of carcasses, is a moral duty. van der Steen says: “It’s a question of sustainability. We have a moral duty to use as much of the animal as we can.”

26 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

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ALL images: poss design limited

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Unlimited POSSibility Poss Design Ltdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s line of separators dominate North American US chicken and turkey market, and have increasingly been taken up by customers around the world. Ken Gulak, president, tells Tom Burnett about the design features of these machines that allow customers to achieve consistent fat and calcium levels, as well as some ways they can be used to recover high value and specialist ingredients.

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P

oss separators have their roots in the revolution in automated meat cutting that took place in Holland in the mid-1970s. Gulak says, “Warner Poss developed the Poss mechanical separator in the 1970s, and Poss Design Ltd was established in 1978. The development of the mechanical separator was driven by advances in automated poultry cut up line. Big lines could cut big volumes of chicken breasts, wings, legs, other primary cuts.

“This resulted in these little shells of carcasses, with the primary cuts removed. A big plant could generate 50,000–75,000 of these a day. They wanted to find a way to get this meat off of the carcasses. If you take 100lb of those carcasses, our machine can recover 75lb of meat. If you look at those carcasses, you'd be surprised, but on average, 75 percent yield is not unusual.

“As the technology has evolved, the original cut up machine gets more meat off in main chicken components, so there’s less meat left on the carcass. But still, yields of 75 percent are not uncommon using Poss machines.

“We're known for everything from very small systems processing maybe hundreds of chicken carcasses an hour by hand, up to US$3m systems that can handle 500,000 carcasses a day, with magnetic detection, automatic filling and and freezing. We can offer a very turnkey system with 50 components for very big processors.”

Today, while Poss separators are also used for red meat and fish, poultry remains at the core of their business. Gulak says, “About 80 percent of our installations, of about 800 machines, are running on chicken lines. Globally, chicken www.meatpacking.info

Far left: Flowing off soft red meat tissue leaving clean cartilege Above: Recovering clean cartilege and chicken breast meat

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is one of the biggest meat products. In North America, our machines are also used heavily for turkey. About 90 percent of turkey plants are in the US. The bird is larger and heavier. Our separators are used in all the turkey plants in America. It's an excellent demonstration of how our machines are built. It separates the men from the boys, it pushes the limit of what the machine can do – there is over 1,000,000lbs of turkey run through Poss machines every hour, every day, in North America alone. One client is running seven of our 10,000kg per hour Poss machines in a single location.”

Local North American processors form the biggest single group of customers for Poss machines, but the business has expanded its reach around the world. Gulak says, “Our equipment has always been built 100 percent in Canada. Our largest market is North America, where he have around 259 machines now.

They’re in every turkey plant, and a lot of chicken plants.

“We have about a dozen machines in the EU at large processors in countries like Belgium and Holland. That’s not a huge market for us.

In Eastern Europe, we have a lot; we have a lot in Brazil, and a lot in Asia. Asia has more than 60 machines, Russia and Eastern Europe 70 machines, and Brazil 75 machines.”

ingredients for success

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he separators Poss sells today remain many similarities with those developed by Warner Poss almost forty years ago. However, November~December 2014 | Meat Packing Journal | 29

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it’s their unique design features that make them so popular. Gulak says, “We primarily focus on extruder style separators. You drop the product into a hopper and it passes through a rotary screw at low RPM, before moving into a separator chamber, which flows the hard from the soft. Something soft is pressured away from something harder.”

Gulak acknowledges that other approaches may have benefits for some meat products, but says Poss’s separators are still the proven leader in its target markets. “Linear doesn't have the volume per hour processing capacities, it’s more focussed on red meat. You can't do a ten tonne an hour poultry system at the same cost.”

When recovering meat, the most important measures are fat and calcium content. Low fat content increases the value of the meat. Low calcium content keeps the product in line with regulations. Seperators must push through high volumes of soft meat, while leaving hard bone behind. This takes high pressures. At the 30 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

Above: The PDX 815 blending backs, carcasses and necks

same time, temperature rise must be kept to a minimum, so that the recovered meat performs well in finished goods.

Key elements of the Poss system are the Poss Screen plate head in the separator, the muscular components used for building pressure in the chamber, and the unique hydraulic autorestrictor used to maintain the correct level of pressure in the chamber.

Gulak explains, “One of key things Poss is known for, is our Poss Screen plate head. That’s something unique to Poss. Most separators have a drum or pipe with a bunch of holes drilled into it. These holes are relatively small, to stop bone coming through with the meat. They may be just 1-2mm. We build our separation head by stacking 14-gauge lasered plates. They are each milled with a slot half a millimetre wide and 20mm high.

“When you compare that opening to a drilled hole, there’s less temperature rise, and higher yield. The narrow slot stops bone the coming www.meatpacking.info

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Left: Separator screws, reworked at bottom Below: Restrictor body before (right) and after rework

through; but the meat comes out in a ribbon shape, rather than being finely ground. That results in better bite and texture in the finished product, and it blends better in formulation.

“On a Poss machine, 20-25 percent of the separator head is openings. On a drilled machine, less than 10 percent of the head is openings.

The fact we have twice as much opening space, means that we flow more meat through under less pressure, which results in less temperature rise.”

The choice, and design, of components turning the screw and building pressure is also vital. Gulak says, “They key way you achieve high yield is to apply pressure. We apply that pressure with relatively low RPM, which gives very little temperature rise. Some competitors have high speed screws, with high temperature rise. We turn at 250-300 rpm, typically, and sometimes as low as 150RPM. We can turn the screw with a lot of force, powered by a large motor through a 5-to-1 gearbox. We carry that www.meatpacking.info

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thrust load backwards, using a very heavy thrust housing, which takes the load of the screw pushing the meat forward. The customer can drop meat directly into the machine, with no pre-grinder: our machine has a sort of grinder built in.”

Getting the perfect balance of yield and low calcium levels requires maintaining precise pressure in the separator chamber. On larger machines, that can be perfected using Poss’s hydraulic autorestrictor. Gulak says, “Many countries refer to the USDA bone calcium regulations for recovered meats. Poss machines work at the highest yields possible, while being within one half of a percentage point of the allowed calcium level. Our machines offer the highest yields within those regulations.

Another way we can maximise the yield, is by using the hydraulic autorestrictor. At the point where you push the product into the pressure head zone, most machines, have a fixed or manually-adjusted restrictor. The restrictor comes up to a set gap against the screw. That's what gives the back pressure for the yield.

For our larger machines, the hydraulic autorestrictor gives the back pressure. It was developed for safety, so customers were never off of their calcium limits. To avoid that, they were always losing yield. With the hydraulic autorestrictor, you can adjust a floating spring against the bone residue stream, regardless of changes in the product coming in. So, where a lot of bone is coming in, the spring moves back; when there's more meat coming in, the restrictor increases the pressure. That's why we guarantee high yields, within the correct calcium levels: the thrust housing at the back of the system, can take the force of the machine; the hydraulic autorestrictor maintains the correct pressure. The customer gets sustainable high pressures, day in and day out.”

As well as automating the pressure control in

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typically five reworks of life in them, so you put 7,500-10,000t of meat through them, before major parts have to be replaced. It’s like a car, the tyres, brakes and shocks, will wear as part of normal use.

“People run our machines every day. The harder you push the machine, in terms of how many tonnes of products you push into the machine, how many bones you push through, the higher yield you get by pushing the bones harder, the more wear you’ll see. There’s a trade-off between the frequency of reworks needed and yield recovery. But the economics of reworking pale in comparison to the benefits of increased yield.

“At any good machine shop, which most processors will have a relationship with, they can maintain all of the parts. Our machines are in 58 countries around the world, and people have learnt how to maintain them wherever they are. They can send it back to us, but that’s like sending a Mercedes back to Stuttgart to get the brake pads replaced. The results will be great, but they’ll cost a lot more.” the separator chamber, giving high yields with fine control of calcium content, Poss separators can also be designed to automatically mix inputs for close control of fat content. Gulak says, “Customers often use three raw materials, with distinctly different fat levels in them. Backs have the highest levels of fat, necks are the leanest, and the rest of the carcass is in the middle.

Mechanically recovered meat is typically sold by fat level. Customers get the highest price for the leanest meats. We can custom blend to a controlled fat level using our system. The customer dials up a recipe for the level of fat they want. We can the control the ratio of materials coming in, allowing you to directly control fat level in meat. Say, the customer wants 15 percent fat levels; he can make sure he is always at 14.9 percent, not 13 percent. Our machines can monitor the fat level continuously, using near-infrared fat/protein/moisture analysis of the output stream. That then loops back back through a PLC, adjusts the levels of one of the ingredients, normally either the fattiest or the leanest, to ensure consistent fat levels in the recovered meat.”

All of these components are working continuously at high pressures. That will inevitably, eventually, result in wear. So they are designed to be easily re-worked by food grade machine shops around the world. Gulak says, “Our machines are designed for reworkability.

In a chicken processing and deboning plant, you can put 1,500-2,000t of meat into the machine before you need a rework. This can be done locally to the client. Our machines have 32 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

skimming off the cream

Above: Plate head meat in ribbons Below: The Poss plate head

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eparators can be used to separate out higher value or specialist components. Gulak cites two examples, in food processing, and in the pharmaceutical sector.

For food, a well-integrated separator will allow customers to make the most of each piece of meat recovered, rather than just extracting a commodity product. Gulak says, “More of our machines are in processing plants, where they are killing and processing birds.

Too many people get into the business just to recover meat. They’re killing half a million chickens a day, then they look at what is the best technology to recover the meat in the highest quality form, and get the most of it.

Our machines are known for having the highest

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me at

yield. They're rarely the least costly option, but they're the best performing. They offer high yield and high recovery, with the lowest temperature rise.

“On our dual stage separators we incorporate two separation steps in one machine. We say you can get the cream off the milk. You don’t get more yield, but these are custom machines, for situations where a client has a need for that cream, where they can either sell it outside at a higher price, or get higher revenues from having two streams. So, they can take off the meat with higher value. We've built eight or ten of those machines, designed to customer specification.

They're not cheap, they're a very specific machine for very specific markets.

“In some markets, the boneless skinless breast meat of chicken is the highest value product.

Then, from the front half of the breast carcass, the lightest meat is the next highest value. If they have 500,000 breast cages a day, they can run just the breast carcasses by themselves through a separator. They’ll then get the lightest meat, in our soft separation first stage. That'll give them the lightest coarsest texture meat, which is very close to pure breast meat. They can skim off the most valuable, lightest, 30 percent in the first stage, and then in the second stage, www.meatpacking.info

Above: Reworking the Poss screen plate

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they can add the dark meat cuts.

“With two separation steps, you can recover meat with distinctly different color, quality, textures, and functionality. It has the best payback where the processor is producing a finished product in house. There’s a lot of equipment out there, like Marel Townsend’s Revo-Portioner, which can form products out of recovered meat, ideally the POSS screen plate textured meat. They can make formed boneless wings out of recovered chicken meat, batter them, bread them, and fry them, and they will be indistinguishable from those made of whole muscle raw material.”

Separators can also be used for higher value products outside of the food sector. Gulak says, “There's an ingredient used for arthritis medicine, that’s taken from the trachea, snouts, and ears of pigs, where you’ve got collagen in the animal. The pharmaceutical sector just that wants clean cartilage. You can flow off the soft product, the blood and meat particles, leaving the clean cartilage which has highest value.

Typically, they may or may not be set up to use the other products in an edible form. That depends on if the supply chain is set up for food grade production throughout, but if it is then the soft product can be used in this way.”

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r e f rig e ra t i o n

The age of ice The power of the cold is an aged tested method of preservation and remains an integral part of the food supply chain. Technical editor James Chappelow looks at the history and development of refrigeration methods and how they changed the meat industry

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he preservative power of low temperatures has long been understood.

That power was amply confirmed in 1991 through the discovery of a body in the Italian Alps . The body was that of a Neolithic hunter and is accepted to be about 5,000 years old. Iceman – as he is now known – was mummified in the extreme cold of a high pass of the Ortzal Alps. His state of preservation is such that scientists have been able suggest his place of origin, with his likely home being the lower Val Venosta. His health was poor and his digestion was a problem as he was infested with the whipworm parasite. This had not stopped him eating some goat in the days before his death and his last meal was red deer and some cereals. He was killed by a flint arrow which severed his subclavian artery. Without ice to preserve him, nothing would have been known of Iceman's past.

Throughout the centuries and in many civilisations ice was made use of to produce luxury foods for the rich and powerful. It is suggested that early methods of making ice creams and sorbets were invented by the Chinese. The Mughal emperors of India had ice to make fruit sorbets delivered to their court

from the Himalayas by relays of fast horsemen.

As early as 400 B.C. The Persian Emperors had built the equivalent of ice houses deep underground so that they had the opportunity during hot weather to enjoy grape juice poured over snow and even a chilled concoction of rose water vermicelli and saffron with various fruits and flavours. The infamous Roman Emperor Nero was known to have ice from the nearest peaks brought to combine with fruit toppings.

By the 16th century it became common across Europe, including the much warmer south, to build ice houses along-side palaces and stately homes and these continued to be status symbols – allowing for the presentation of a wide range of iced puddings – until well into the 19th century.

In terms of meat production, although cold locations such as underground chambers, caves and even larders were widely used, the idea of freezing meat was not generally adopted until the late 19th century. The meat that was stored for a longer period of time was already preserved in the traditional way, usually after some form of curing. This is still the case today. Classic Parma Ham, for example, is still produced and stored in the time-honoured way. Those twin engines

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November~December 2014 | Meat Packing Journal | 35

Paul Hanny

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of progress, demand and invention, coupled, as ever, to serendipity,were to change this picture dramatically.

commercial potential

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inds were opened to the commercial potential of ice when it became possible to export it in ever increasing quantities from cold climates, where it was never in short supply, to warmer climes, where demand would grow exponentially. This is best illustrated by the story of Wenham Lake. Once this lake, to the north-east of Boston, was put within an hour of that city by the opening of the Eastern Railway, the commercial possibility of transporting its winter ice could be developed.Within the United States the consumption of ice, not least to cool

36 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

Above: The 5,000 year old body of a Neolithic man preserved in the ice of Italian Alps demonstrates the preservative power of ice Above, right: The recreated model of the preserved man

drinks, was already commonplace. Boston alone consumed more than 50,000 tons of ice a year.

Enterprising American entrepreneurs created an ice farm at Wenham lake and built ice houses (using double walls insulated with a two foot thick layer of sawdust) to store the harvest of the lake.

Frederic Tudor's Wenham Lake Ice Company began the export of ice blocks to England in the 1840's. During a typical voyage of around 50 days, the original 502 tons of ice was reduced to 326 tons â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a loss of 176 tons in that case. The poor drainage on the early ice ships â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which left the sawdust wet and thus a conductor of heat rather than an insulation material - and the simple impact of a necessarily salty atmosphere were to blame for this loss. The newly constructed ice stores in London, however, were very effective and might store up to 2,000 tons www.meatpacking.info

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of ice for long periods. The ice from Wenham was famed for its purity. It was certainly much better than ice made during the English, winter which was a risk to health as it melted. Wenham ice was displayed in a Strand shop window with a newspaper behind it. The ice was thus shown to be pure as the newspaper was readable through the ice block.

The popularity of such ice may be measured in the fact that it was granted a Royal Warrant to be supplied to Queen Victoria and in the fact that the rival Norwegian ice companies changed the name of their lake to Wenham to help bolster their competition. Before long domestic refrigerators were being acquired which were either lead lined or lined with layers of charcoal as insulation. These portable ice boxes were also developed by the Wenham Lake Ice Company In 1865 Andrew Wynter in writing about the

impact of the Wenham Ice phenomena in England commented that: â&#x20AC;&#x153;Henceforth, no decent householder need tolerate swimming butter or lukewarm drinking water in dog days. Neither should tough joints, warm from the slaughter house, be suffered to pass as heretofore, on the plea that there is no keeping meat in this hot weather......To Butchers and dealers in perishable provisions of all kinds will prove invaluable, as its adoption will obviate all the inconveniences to which they have hitherto been put in warm weatherâ&#x20AC;?

rom an English domestic point of view, Wynter was undoubtedly right, yet his vision was limited. Within a very short

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the move to meat movement

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time the use of ice and the development of artificial refrigeration became the agent for the emergence of a thriving global meat market. The conjunction of two unstoppable forces drove this transformation: population and production.

Across Europe (and, indeed, in the USA) population figures showed dramatic increases. In England the population rose from 10 million in 1811 to 21 million in 1871 while in the U.S.A., with the far greater impact of immigration to take into account, the comparable figure was a rise from around 7 million in 1810 to nearly 40 million in 1870. Despite the dire predictions of Malthus, there was not widespread starvation (except in the case of the Irish famine of the 1840's ) but there was a danger of malnutrition.

In England the consumption of meat in the growing cities was falling until 1851 when the first meat imports (of live cattle) supplemented the home produced meat. Across the globe, however, burgeoning meat industries were desperate to fill the gap. The most significant of these were the beef industries of the U.S.A. and the sheep and beef industries of Argentina, New Zealand and Australia.

Connecting the distant farms with the growing markets required new solutions. Some progress had been made with canning meat.

This was thought to be sufficiently good for soldiers but in general the results were less than encouraging. Meanwhile, many animals were rendered to make tallow, and in some cases â&#x20AC;&#x201C; as in New Zealand- unwanted animals were simple driven over cliffs into the sea to be rid of them. Within the U.S.A. Attempts were made to freeze beef carcasses in a salt-ice mixture and transport them in ships that became known as reefers. By 1869 these ships were taking beef from Indianola, Texas to New Orleans, Louisiana and the meat was deemed suitable for hospitals, hotels and restaurants. From 1873 the reefer ships were adapted to take frozen beef to London. The ship hold was cooled by ice but were limitations caused by insulation, loading techniques, ice block size, the distance involved and the climate during the voyage. Nevertheless, a healthy trade was established with the delivery of 10,000 short tons per year.

refrigerated ships

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he real advance in the global meat trade followed the installation of refrigeration machines on ships. This was first attempted on the Northam, which sailed from Australia to England in 1876 but the machinery broke down during the voyage and the meat rotted. In 1877 two refrigerated ships â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Le Figorifique and Paraguay- successfully transported the first cargo 38 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

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of frozen mutton from Argentina to France although there was little profit in this venture. In 1879 the Strathleven, fitted with a compression refrigerator, sailed from Sydney to London with a part cargo of beef and mutton. Only 40 tons were transported, however, and this left a question mark over the commercial viability of such voyages.

The breakthrough in this trade was the 98 day voyage from New Zealand to London of the clipper Dunedin. This ship, owned by the New Zealand and Australian Land Company, was originally built for the transport of emigrants from England to New Zealand. It was converted into a refrigerated ship through the fitting of a Bell-Coleman Air Compression Refrigerator. This was a steam powered freezer unit. Compressed air was released into the hold of the ship, it cooled as it expanded and it was sufficiently efficient to maintain a temperature below 0 degrees centigrade throughout the voyage. The steam engine used about three tons of coal a day and the ship had to be fitted with a funnel which has led some to mistakenly believe that Dunedin was a steamer.

As there were no refrigeration sites in New Zealand at the time, the stock was killed on land and frozen on the ship. After some teething problems with the machinery, the Dunedin set sail from Port Chalmers on 11th February 1882. The cargo included around 4,400 sheep carcasses, nearly 600, lamb carcasses and 22 pig carcasses as well as some kegs of butter, sheep tongues, and some hare, pheasant, turkey and chicken.

The voyage was not without problems.

Captain Whitson became very concerned about the temperature in the hold as the ship passed through the tropics. His decision to try to alter the air circulation led to his collapse due to the cold and he had to be rescued by the ship's mate. Nevertheless, the voyage proved a great success. Within a fortnight of arrival the entire cargo was sold at Smithfield meat market. The high quality of the meat was noted and even mentioned in the House of Lords. The New Zealand and Australian Land Company (NZALC) doubled their investment in making a profit of ÂŁ4,700 on the enterprise.

Although the British consumer had to be educated in how to defrost the meat before cooking, there was no doubt about its popularity. A second vessel, the Marlborough, was soon fitted out and the two NZALC ships completed six voyages with even larger cargos before they were both lost at sea. It is presumed that they struck icebergs while rounding Cape Horn. After Dunedin, however,there was no stopping the frozen meat trade between New Zealand and Australia. www.meatpacking.info

November~December 2014 | Meat Packing Journal | 39

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The subsequent growth of the meat trade in New Zealand serves as a good example of the impact of refrigeration. The attraction of a profitable market led to the formation of the New Zealand Refrigerating Company, the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company and the Gear Company in the 1880s. Success bred a willingness to try new technologies. In the 1890s air compression machines were gradually replaced by more efficient machines that were already in use in the U.S.A. which made use of ammonia and carbonic acid. By the mid 1990s there were 21 freezing works in the islands.

These supplied 36 ships, all but six of which were steamers and the largest of which could carry 100,000 sheep on one voyage.

After such promising beginnings it seemed that the New Zealand meat industry tended to rest on its laurels. In part this was due to the poor management that accompanied the British origins and ownership of the industry.

It is suggested that British industrialists, unlike their U.S. or German counterparts, did not put much faith in scientific advances and further new technology. In the industrialised world mass production on the mechanised assembly line was becoming the norm in the 1920s. It was not until 1932 that the chain system for processing and preparing slaughtered animals for freezing was finally introduced. This was not accomplished without job losses and industrial action. Skilled butchers lost their jobs as unskilled and cheaper labour could run the chain system.

freeze speed

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last freezing" was introduced in 1949.

This was achieved by the fast circulation of air past the evaporators in refrigeration units.

The effect was to shorten the freezing time to between 12 and 16 hours instead of 18 to 72 hours. This was a great cost-cutting exercise. No attempt was made to evaluate this change until the formation of the Meat Industry Research Institute of New Zealand in 1955. Questions were raised about both weight loss and meat quality. It was seen that meat suffered from a loss of “bloom” under the new process. Through the application of scientific research led to changes such as the replacement of traditional stockinette wrapping for carcasses with shrink wrapping in polythene film. Increased investment for quality has helped establish a very high reputation for the New Zealand meat industry. The extra costs are accepted as a price worth paying for quality in what has become a very competitive global meat market.

Other New World meat producers were 40 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

quick to take advantage of new refrigeration technology.By 1893 16 percent of the United Kingdom's meat consumption was frozen beef and port from the U.S.A. Compared with just over two percent from New Zealand. Australia and Argentina were also actively expanding their trade in frozen meat. One symbol of the importance of refrigeration in the United States was the demand for railroad refrigerated cars.

Although the railroads had invested heavily in cattle cars, stock yards, feed lots and other essentials for the transport of live cattle, the meat packing industry demanded refrigerator cars. Experiments with ice-lined cars began as early as 1842, but these “ice boxes on wheels” only functioned in cld weather and spoilage rates were high.

The added impetus of the emergence of California as a major perishable food producing state led to the production of shiny yellow refrigerator cars for the railroads, each of which carried 30 tons of goods, much of it frozen meat.

Refrigeration has completely transformed the patterns of meat consumption around the world. Larger ships using state of the art freezer technology deliver ever increasing quantities of high quality meat all around the globe.

Consumers in the developed world have more choice than ever before, which is enhanced by the ability to store meats for long periods in home freezers.

While there are growing pressures within the market to buy locally reared meat, the contribution of frozen produce is likely to retain its central place in the food supply chain. The impact of refrigeration should be celebrated.

references and further reading Dr Andrew Cleland, 2009. Refrigeration: underpinning the New Zealand Economy over 125 years.

Sidney Jenkinson. The 19th Century Heritage: Refrigeration and the Meat Industry.

Andrew Wynter, 1865. Pictures of Town and Country Life: Wenham Lake Ice. Barbara Krasner-Khait, 2003. The Impact of Refrigeration.

Linda Danes-Wingett. A History of the Railroad Refrigerator Car. Stephen S.Hall, 2007. Iceman Mystery – National Geographic Magazine.

Robin Weir. The History of Ice Cream.

J.Critchell and J. Raymond, 1969. A History of the Frozen Meat Trade.

M. Wilkins, 1991. The History of Foreign Investment in the United States. www.meatpacking.info

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its going to be big. Its going to be busy. You need to be ready. The 2015 International Production and Processing Expo is set to surpass all previous shows.

Held every year in Atlanta, Georgia, the heartland of the US Poultry industry, the 2015 edition of the show is expected to draw some 28,000 visitors and 1,200 exhibitors across 450,000sqft (42,000sqm) of exhibition space.

The show is comprised of the three integrated trade shows – International Poultry Expo, International Feed Expo and International Meat Expo.

“More than 85 percent of the show floor has been booked, including our expansion into Building C. We anticipate more than 28,000 attendees at the 2015 IPPE, with the Expo providing an excellent location to learn about new products and services and for businesses to collaborate and attendees to network. The 2015 IPPE will also benefit from an expanded audience as AMI and the North American Meat Association (NAMA) complete their merger,” states Charlie Olentine, IPPE show manager.

“NAMA members are excited to be a part of IPPE moving forward,” says Barry Carpenter, NAMA President and CEO. “Their presence will bring increased value to all the show’s exhibitors, as they look to find the latest technology, equipment and services in the industry.”

IPPE will also feature dynamic education programs addressing current industry issues, combining the expertise from American Feed Industry Association, American Meat Institute and US Poultry.

While based each year at the heart of America’s poultry industry, the show continues to draw delegates from around the world.

In 2014 the show attracted more than five thousand delegates from overseas with Brazil, Columbia, China and Nigeria sending the most attendees. Some 11 percent of attendees bought equipment at the 2014 show.

42 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

all under one roof IPPE features a full range of industry equipment on show: Animal health and sanitation products Cutting and boning Environmental systems Facility design General packinghouse equipment Logistics and process control programs & equipment Packaging equipment and supplies Processing equipment Quality control Sanitation Seasonings, ingredients and additives Slaughtering equipment Temperature control Transportation and storage services IPPE features a wide variety of educational workshops, including translated sessions. You will find a focus on food safety, plant operations, sustainability and other hot industry topics: Animal ag sustainability summit Beef plant tour Consumer trends Dietary guidelines update International poultry scientific forum International rendering symposium Pet food conference Poultry Market intelligence forum Poultry: Microbial control in 2nd processing Sanitary design for raw/fresh Swine production & processing: An international perspective Consumer trends & best new products Food safety sessions on validation, PEDv and antibiotic use

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venue Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

show times Tuesday, 27 January: 10am ~ 5pm Wednesday, 28 January: 9am ~ 5pm Thursday, 29 January: 9am ~ 3pm

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November~December 2014 | Meat Packing Journal | 43

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Let them eat cake

accurately-labelled

Around the world, legislation on weighing and labelling seeks to ensure consumers can see clearly the quantity of food they are buying. This requires control of processes in packing plants to ensure the weight shown on labels matches the packs contents. It demands scales that are accurate.

Tom Burnett explains.

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Right: Marie Antoinette (probably didn’t actually declare) ‘Let them eat cake’. Paris’s bakers however were pushing up prices by using false scales and picking the measure to use from hundreds

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November~December 2014 | Meat Packing Journal | 47

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L

egislation of weights and measures, in the modern world, dates back to the French Revolution. In the years running up to the revolution more than 250,000 different weights and measures were in use across France. In one department, Maine et Loire, 110 different measures were used for grain, Roland Wenzlhuemer explains in his paper The History of Standardisation in Europe, published by the Liebniz Institute. In the run up to the revolution, bread prices rose sharply.

The monarchy tried, perhaps half-heartedly, to enforce price controls. However, with merchants able to pick the measure they used, the quantity of food sold could be reduced, even when they price apparently stayed the same.

The demand for bread spurred the masses on to the streets, overthrowing the monarchy.

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Clockwise from left: Talleyrand sponsored regulations at the revolutionary assembly to standardise measures; The starving masses seized the Bastille, and arrested Antoinette; A hundred years later, France gave prototype kilograms to metrological authorities.

In the new revolutionary assembly, Talleyrand sponsored development of a new standard system of measurement, the metric system.

Despite Talleyrand's long career in politics, through the revolutionary years and under the restored monarchy, adoption of the metric system around the world was slow, with even some EU member states not requiring measures in kilograms until the end of the 20th century.

Today though, the idea of clear standards for measures, control of weighing apparatus, and of reliable labelling, is universal.

Legal for trade

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he type of fraud practiced by the merchants of ancien regime France is perhaps best www.meatpacking.info

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epitomised by the idea of putting a thumb on the scale: tampering with a weighing device to make goods appear heavier than they are. The essential tool for an accurate measure is an accurate scale.

As Avery Weigh-Tronix’s primer on the topic explains, legislation and standards around the world require weighing equipment to be ‘legal for trade’. Equipment is certified as legal for trade by a weights or measures inspector, or an approved qualifier. An appropriate approved body must evaluate the design and operation of the equipment to ensure that it conforms to the published guidelines and requirements.

Most countries globally, other than the USA, have adopted the International Organization of Legal Metrology (OIML) requirements for weighing equipment.

In the US, requirements for legal for trade weighing equipment are laid out in Handbook 44 (Specific Tolerances and Other Technical Requirements for Weighing and Measuring Devices).

Equipment is certified under the National Type Evaluation Program (NTEP) which is developed through cooperation between the National Conference on Weights and Measures (NCWM) and the Weights and Measure division of the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST). NTEP is a process for the testing and evaluation of weighing equipment and critical components to ensure their compliance with Handbook 44.

According to NTEP, the term ‘used for trade’ refers to devices that are used for selling, purchasing, exchanging, custody transfer, or

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establishing the cost for services or hire on the basis of a measurement.

By NTEPs terms, a ‘device’ is a weighing or measuring instrument. The term also refers to major elements such as indicators, weighing elements and volume registers.

In the EU, countries adopt harmonised European Directives for CE compliance. These directives cover a wide range of trade issues.

For weighing equipment, two are most relevant.

The 2004 Measuring Instruments Directive, or MID, amended in 2009, and replacing a series of directives going back to the 1970s, covers automatic weighing instruments. Weighing instruments that require the intervention of an operator to adjust the quantity of material are covered by the 2009 Non-Automated Weighing Instruments Directive, or NAWI. In the EU, when a directive is proposed by the European Commission and then adopted by the European Parliament, it is does not then become law automatically in every member state. Instead, member states are bound by treaty to adopt the aims of the directive into their local laws. The intention is to ensure that while the free trade and other aims of the directive are achieved, the execution is carried out in a way that is compatible with local laws and institutions.

In the UK, for example, Avery Weigh-Tronix explains, automatic checkweighers are not prescribed and do not have to be verified before they can be used for average weight, the owner of the instrument must always be able to show however that they are suitable for their use. The law relating to the average weight of packages is the responsibility of the local weights and measures department working under NMO guidelines. The rationale for regulating equipment is that the accuracy of quantity for a large number of individual transactions can be guaranteed by ensuring the accuracy of the equipment making the measure.

simple policemen and smart averages

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aris’s bakers did not just use inaccurate scales. They also, as discussed above, picked and chose from hundreds of different measures of weight to obscure price rises. For a label to make clear to consumers what they are buying (and how much they are paying for it) it should be prepared to a clear standard.

When a customer is buying food packed in front of them, like a cut of meat or slice of cheese, it’s enough for the the scale used to be legal for trade. When the customer is buying a product that has been pre-packed the customer

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needs to know that it has been weighed and labelled in an accurate way.

There are two ways to do this. The first, is by packing to a minimum weight. Here, if a pack says 400g, it will contain at least 400g of goods.

This is most common with goods that are to be sold in standard packs with ingredients that are easy to pack in standard sizes, like coffees or cereal. The role of a checkweigher here will be just to ensure that no pack is sold that is under the minimum weight: a ‘simple policeman’.

Weighing and labelling becomes more complex when the ingredients are harder to pack to regular weights, but are sold in fixed weight packs. Here, an average weight must be used. To be fair to the consumer, this should ensure that the pack is as close to the average as possible.

To be fair to the processor, some variation must be allowed. This balance is defined by average weight legislation.

In Europe, packs prepared to average weight legislation carry the ‘estimated sign’ or e-mark.

This shows the pack has been prepared in compliance with a series of directives adopted by the EEC in the 1970s, and the labelling requirements for foodstuffs adopted by the European Commission in 2000. As with the ‘legal for trade’ regulations, the aims of these directives are adopted into law by memebr states. In the UK, for example, they are adopted under The Weights and Measures (Packaged Goods) Regulations 2006.

These are explained in a document produced

by WELMEC, the European Cooperation in Legal Metrology, Guide for packers and importers of e-marked prepacked products. The e-mark legislation requires three conditions are met: That the average weight of a batch is above the weight shown on the label That the proportion of packs in the batch that fall below a tolerance defined in the legislation is no higher than a defined level: typically, 1-in-40 packs That no pack in the batch falls below twice the defined tolerance.

The tolerances allowed the legislation vary according to the weight of the pack. The basic tolerance, which is allowed for a certain proportion of packs, is known as T1. The second tolerance, beneath which no pack may fall, is known as T2. The tolerance is defined according to the nominal weight of the pack. For example, on a batch of 7g packs of saffron, T1 is 9% of the nominal weight. So, only a fixed proportion of packs may fall below 6.37g; no pack may fall below T2, or 5.74g. At 600g, for a pack of, say, pork chops, T1 is defined as 15g. So, no more than a defined proportion of packs in the batch may fall below 585g; no pack in the batch may fall below T2, or 570g. www.meatpacking.info

CONSISTENTLY ACCURATE WEIGHTS. NOTHING MORE. NOTHING LESS. The Vemag Process Check virtually eliminates giveaway, reduces rework, and increases profitability in your chub product. The Vemag Process Check is an inline check-weigher that virtually eliminates off-weights and productgiveaway. Your product weights can be affected by a number of variables, including changes in raw material, lean-to-fat ratios, product temperature, density, and even machine wear. The Process Check communicates directly with the Vemag Stuffer to compensate for those variables, continuously fine-tuning each portion to increase your on-weight percentages. In fact, we’ve developed a spreadsheet that can calculate your annual cost savings with the Vemag Process Check and prove its ROI. Take back your giveway – contact Reiser and arrange a demonstration. www.reiser.com Reiser • Canton, MA • (781) 821-1290 Reiser Canada • Burlington, ON • (905) 631-6611 Reiser UK • Kingston, Milton Keynes • (01908) 585300 2014

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Weights and measures To comply with average weight legislation, weighing and labelling equipment must be integrated into IT systems. But data collection from checkweighers can do more than that. Tom Burnett reports

O

ver the last two articles, we’ve seen how standardised measures and average weight legislation have developed, and how fixed weight packs are prepared. The average weight legislation requires accurate measurement to show the packs within correct tolerances. For this reason, weighing equipment must be integrated into their data systems.

Joe Maudlin, sales director, Marel, says, “This is where the intelligent software comes in.

The processor who runs the line, has to have the paperwork to show the average is over the nominal weight. It’s all about maintaining the average, with a fixed price and fixed weight.”

But confirming that the packs comply with the legislation is not the end of the story. The same data collection that’s used for compliance purposes can also be used to monitor performance of the entire line, either adjusting processes through the day, or spotting problems.

Avery Weigh-Tronix’s Darren Waplington says, “People want checkweighers to be accurate and fast. They have to be faster than the operator. A good operator can just watch the lights on the display. We can have data sent back from the scale, that sees the weight that's been accepted and adjust the tolerances.

“One thing we've done with our check weigher, as it is used in so many ways, both for quality control and production, is that we’ve designed it to be very flexible. You can check weigh in a number of ways. A lot of people have a static checkweigher, next to the in-motion, so they can take samples off of the line through the day and make sure the in-motion is accurate.

You don't want to have to stop the line at that

52 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

point.

“Units can be single standalone, they can be manually controlled by a supervisor, or they can be controlled across the whole line. The advantage of that is the individual operators don’t have any opportunity to widen the checkweigher’s tolerance.

“We can also provide statistical data. Quality control in food processing is very high, so customers want to have the ability to see exactly what is happening on the line. Our statistical package measures the mean and the mid, how many packages are overweight, how many are under. It watches the trends through the day, as packs are going through, and can see if they are falling out of tolerance, where there might be a problem with something on the line. Is it a machine starting to change? Is it an operator?

It allows you to streamline your line, get more through, with less giveaway.

“All this data is useful. People will record, say, is a new operator working to the high or low end of tolerance. That helps them speed the process up. Plants want to see parts per minutes: why is one operator working more efficiently than another? Is there a problem with a machine? Each plant wants to capture different bits of data, and to have opportunities to input data to their different systems. PlantPower helps us link into their average weight software. You can also build it so their quality people, for example, can stop the line and perform a certain check. That helps allow them to control their process.”

Most of Avery Weigh-Tronix’s software packages are Windows based and easily configurable to suit the needs of a particular

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ALL IMAGES: MAREL

operation. The scale software includes packages for simple reporting to complex real-time production management systems. They can run on stand-alone PCs or be integrated into existing networks and systems. The software solutions can be paired with a range of weighing scales and indicators for a complete weighing and data management solution Marel offers its own tools for integrating weighing equipment into broader processing and supply chain systems. Maudlin says, “Within our offering, we offer our own IT system more often than not, which can feed into ERP systems, using our Marel Innova product. We can control all the machinery throughout the process, offering

Above: Weight distribution chart for checkweighing

front door to back door production control.”

Innova is based on modular, scalable, designs.

It supports a broad range of Marel’s processing equipment and allows processors to control single devices or a whole array of equipment across the plant floor. It can also communicate with other systems, such as ERP or other planning systems. This enables processors to optimize the overall food production, from reception of raw material to final dispatch.

Innova can control individual machinery or whole processing lines such as intelligent portioning and trimming machines, grading and batching equipment, trimming and boning lines, packing and labeling lines, all kinds of weighing equipment, vision units and RFID logistic solutions.

Left: Marel's Mcheck 2

54 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

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Portion control

56 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

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Increasingly, retailers are asking meat processors to deliver fixed weight packs. For processors, this requires investment up the line to ensure cuts can be batched together, within the average weight legislation described previously and without excess giveaway.

Tom Burnett looks at the technology involved.

marel

T

he increasing prevalence of fixed weight packages is, perhaps, are an indication of the unequal power of retailers. As Marel sales director Joe Maudlin explains, demand for, say, regular 400g packs of chicken drumsticks, is driven almost entirely by the supermarkets.

Maudlin says, “In the UK, without a doubt, fixed weight is more and more prevalent.

It means you can have a fixed price on the shelf. Retailers are driving it. Consumers are indifferent, they still like to see the choice of a big steak or a little steak. The processors get paid by pack, so it’s a standardised price. They get paid for the number of packs, rather than the total weight of product inside it. It’s easier for inventory and pricing. It drives the price down, as customers want to buy the £2.99 pack off the shelf, rather than the £3.15.”

The adoption of these packs isn’t entirely drive by the retailers, but does offer some advantages to consumers, Maudlin says, “On ready to cook type products, if every pack is 400g, it is easier for the microwave, easier to cook.”

As Darren Waplington, product manager, Avery Weigh-Tronix, explains, getting the portions into the pack is often a manual task, but ensuring that packs meet the average weight legislation without excess giveaway requires close monitoring of pack weights: “If you’re sending out chicken fillets at fixed weights, the operators will pack to that weight on a static check weigher.

“One of the main reasons for check weighers, most of the time, is that customers want to make sure they are staying legal, while not giving away more than they need to. In a processing plant, the check weigher is used firstly for the quality control requirements of the www.meatpacking.info

Left: Marel's I-Cut profile laser scanning

processor, to keep them staying legal, but not giving too much away. “ Manual operators, or automated systems, can only pack to a fixed weight if portions are delivered to the packing area in known sizes.

Maudlin’s colleague, marketing executive Kathrin Gerbe, says, “From a slicing or portioning point of view, the challenge is to be able to produce fixed weight packs or portions from a product that varies in shape, in fat content and which may have voids. Vision technology and scanners enable processors to obtain high levels of onweights and low levels of giveaway from this type of product.”

Maudlin adds, “It’s the intelligence further up the line, the batching equipment, that allows for fixed weight packs. When you’re in a meat processing plant, you can cut the trim off, and use it for other goods. With a whole chicken, you can’t get a right sized whole chicken.

Similarly, you need to pick two right-sized fish.

You need to use batching equipment further up the line to get the correct weight portions.”

Gerbe continues, “The cut face vision system utilised in some of Marel’s Polyslicer deli and IBS bacon slicers maps the product’s cut face so that detectable features, such as voids or areas of fat, are carefully and accurately measured, slice by slice. The information is used by the slicer to adjust the product feed to vary slice thickness in minute detail.

“This technology generates high first time on-weights and very low giveaway with minimal manual intervention. Feature detection can also be used to grade product to maximise the value of premium product, for example by analysing fat content to identify transition grade packs.

“Marel has been using x-ray vision technology to push the boundaries of weight accuracy for irregularly shaped products like natural hams November~December 2014 | Meat Packing Journal | 57

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Marel

Left: Marel's high speed IBS 4600 Vision slicer

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or bacon for more than 25 years, increasing the percentage of on-weights coming directly from the slicer to well over 90% - and we keep pushing.

Rather than just looking at the cut face, Marel’s portioning machines use volumetric 3D scanning technology combined with infeed scales to create a profile of the product before it enters the portioning process. Clever software uses the weight and profile information to calculate the slice thickness required to produce a fixed weight pack with a set number of portions, or could even be programmed to leave a small joint at the end of the primal if desired.

This enables the machines to optimise yield while achieving maximum on-weights.

“Marel’s strength in this area lies in our proven capability to integrate these slicers and portioning machines into complete fixed weight production lines that suit our customers’ applications. Typically, a machine could be linked with a checkweigher, robot loading and packaging and a complete End of Line system, including labelling, metal detection, checkweighing, packing and crate labelling to form a complete portioning and packing system.”

While the automated systems Gerbe describes help ensure that portions are grouped together in predictable weights, the packs still need to be weighed accurately to ensure they hit the nominal pack weight. Waplington says checkweighers are used in two key areas in meat deconstruction and packing plants: “Our checkweighers are trade approved, to guarantee the weight going across it. In a meat plant, customers will use a static checkweigher, to portion meat it before it goes into the packs.

Each operator packs to the weight needed, and puts into a tray. In a deconstruction plant, where they quarter an animal, for different parts of animals, there are different minimum weights of animal allowed for primal cuts. Prime cuts is where they use the check weigher at the start of the line.”

At the end of the line, an in motion checkweigher is used to ensure pack weights are on target. Waplington says, “The last part of that process is before it gets packed, shrinkwrapped and labelled, it will go into an in-motion checkweigher, to make sure it is in correct bounds. Grab weight, goes to labeller and out. At that point, it's gone through a number of processes, if it is underweight, you have a problem.”

Maudlin says, “Check weighers serve two purposes. At the end of the line are approved weighers. And further up the line are process check weigher. If you have a filling operation or portioning machine, it goes through a vacuum

press and filler, onto the checkweigher and feeds back to the process. You can add a bit more, or a bit less. Preparing the packs before you get to the end of the line reduces the packaging costs due to rejection on the approved check weigh machines, where you have to send back up the line and rework. It’s about controlling giveaway throughout the line.”

At the end of the line, the checkweigher may be used in conjunction with a weigh-pricelabeller. These offer the flexibility to prepare either traditional priced by weight packs, or fixed weight packs. At the same time, they can ensure pack presentation meets customer requirements.

Maudlin says, “A weigh price labeller, is typically used to weigh the product, and then based on the weight, calculate the price. It then applies a label at high speeds, up to 120 packs per minute, all day every day. That label on shelf is applied at high speed with a lot of variable factors calculated. On catch weight products, it weighs product, and puts a legal price on the pack with all the information it needs.”

“Weigh-price-labelers can also be used in fixed weight products, where they are still applying labels at very high speed. So, a pack of mince, will be first run over a weigh-pricelabeler, and then over a check weigher.”

It’s about staying legal, Waplington says, “Under the average weight legislation, if you look at a tin of beans, or prepacked meat, there’s often a little ‘e’, which means the product has been packed to an average weight standard.

On a thousand packs, they have to stay above a certain limit. What those tolerances do, is help the plant make sure they are staying to the legal side of that weight. If the run goes close to the tolerance band, our equipment pushes the tolerance up, to make sure you don't go below.

If you go past that second tolerance, it stops line.

“We also do average weight systems with our static checkweighers. They can be all linked together, and a computer controls the tolerances on each weigher. So, say it's a 1kg pack of meat, we set the tolerance to 1.1-1.2k. Operators want to keep that band as small as possible, as set by the user. When you put average weight in, it starts at high side, but then reduces the band to make sure they don’t give too much away.

“The software is controlling the packers, who are putting product in a box, so when it gets to the end to be shrink wrapped and labelled, it's as close to that tolerance as possible. For example, with nuggets, when the line is preparing these, if as part of that process the batter gets thicker, the system can reduce tolerances. If you've got 500 boxes, it’s a lot of waste to rework stuff. So anything that comes back down the line again, you’ve got a big issue.”

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Mark of hygiene

sandvik

Weighing and labeling equipment comes into contact with every pack passing down a meat packing line, both when whole carcasses are graded, when they are sliced, and when they are packed. It must be easy to washdown, and not present any areas where contamination can collect. Tom Burnett reports

W

eighing equipment must be designed with the hygiene requirements of the food processor a priority. Avery Weigh-Tronix’s Darren Waplington says, “In the meat sector, the biggest feature is hygiene. Everyone is so careful about bacterial contamination. Most of these plants, change their cleaning process every few months, to avoid resistant bacteria. So, it’s important for them to have a scale that can be cleaned and put back on line.”

Weighing equipment is present throughout the meat processing line, from initial entry to the plant to when it is sent out to the retailer.

The position in the line will determine the features required of the equipment. Marel’s Joe Maudlin says, “When you use weigh-price-label equipment, it’s different, it’s in a dry area, low care area. The checkweighers in the process area in a high care area, where hygiene requirements are most stringent.

“All the machinery Marel manufactures for the processing sector is industrial. All the machines comply with IP69K requirements. They are made with fully stainless steel constructions, 60 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

no flat surfaces, with quick access for easy cleaning, and fully waterproof.

“Weighing equipment needs to be sturdy, robust, reliable. It needs to be built to an industrial design. There are some retail machines that come in from other manufacturers, but these are designed for the industrial sector.”

Both companies design their weighing equipment in line with IP69K. IP codes (for ‘ingress protection’ marking) are defined in the International Electrotechnical Commission standard IEC 60529. The aim of the standard is to show how well a device’s enclosure protects sensitive components from damage. The two digits of the code refer to the level of protection from, first, solid particles (rated 0-6), and second, liquids, (rated 0-9K). An IP69K device is certified as being completely dust tight, and able to be washed down with high pressure, high temperature water jets.

Avery Weigh-Tronix says that this is essential on processing lines. Equipment used in the food processing industry must be able to withstand rigorous wash-down procedures. Designed specifically to kill micro-organisms and bacteria, www.meatpacking.info

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this heavy duty cleaning process typically uses high temperature, high pressure jet sprays and detergents. The combination of water, chemicals, high pressures and temperatures used in the cleaning process can prove fatal for electronic circuits and instrumentation.

Both companies construct their processing line equipment using stainless steel. Avery Weigh-Tronix says this should be treated to further smooth and polish the peaks found within the surface of the metal. The ideal finish is under Ra 0.8 μm, as specified within National Sanitation Foundation, American National Standards Institute and European Hygienic Engineering and Design Group criteria.

The rougher the finish of a surface, the easier it is for food to cling to it – allowing microorganisms hide within the grain and start to take hold. Using a fine grain brush finish results in a piece of equipment that is far easier to clean.

For example, Avery Weigh-Tronix’s ZQ375 check weigher is manufactured using food grade AISI (American Iron and Steel Institute) 304 stainless steel and finished with a fine brushed surface finish in line with the NSF and ANSI

certification requirements.

Marel recently upgraded its OCM9500 box and crate labeler with a waterproof chassis and indicator to withstand full washdown to IP69K, subject to the printer being covered or removed.

Introduced at Seafood Processing Global in Brussels, the waterproof OCM9500 box/crate labeler is suitable for automatic weighing and labeling applications in both wet and dry production environments. The unit handles crates and boxes up to 40kg in weight, providing consistent weighing accuracy with automatic zero tracking.

As well as being designed with hygiene in mind, weighing equipment can be used as part of contamination control. Maudlin says, “The products are weighed dynamically, sometimes with metal detection built in. Preprogrammed parameters in the software weigh the pack, check the pack, and decide if it is acceptable or not.

“If you find a pack that doesn’t meet the weight legislation, or if there’s metal in the pack, it can removed from the line and goes into a lock box for quality assurance.”

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A clean scale

all images: avery weighttronix

Check weighers come into contact with every package of meat as it leaves the processing line, making hygiene and cleanability vital to their use.

62 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

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rocessors in both Europe and the USA have chosen products from Avery Weigh-Tronix to meet their needs for accurate weighing systems that are hygienic and can be easily cleaned.

fast cleaing for fast food

A

ce 4 Kebabs, in Hampshire, UK, processes around 50t of meat per week. It recently upgraded its plant, and turned to Avery WeighTronix for help.

The kebab manufacturer, based in Hampshire, UK, moves approximately 7t of meat across its scales per day in order to meet the demands of its network of distributors. The equipment used by the company must meet stringent hygiene

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Above: Cleaning Avery Weightronix's Checkmate checkweigher

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standards and be robust and reliable enough to withstand harsh daily use and high pressure jet washing.

Dean Dryden, production manager for Ace 4 Kebabs, says: “To maintain the long-standing relationships we have with our distributors, it’s important we are able to consistently meet their demands in a timely and cost effective manner.

With nearly 50t of food passing across our scales each week, it’s essential they are accurate, reliable and tough.”

Following its recent investment in a £4m, 33,000 square foot, state-of-the-art factory, selecting equipment that maintained their high standards of hygiene was a key concern for Ace 4 Kebabs. The ZQ375 Checkweigher has an IP69K rated enclosure which makes it suitable for the kind of close-range, high pressure, high temperature spray downs used by the company.

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Its large, nine segment digits and coloured multi-segmented under/overweight graph give the operator a fast visual indication of weight which is user friendly, yet highly accurate. It can be integrated into back office systems through wireless, USB or ethernet connections.

high capacity hygiene

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we have been able to achieve success in the food industry is our commitment to hygienic excellence. We wanted to upgrade to a scale with the highest ingress protection rating. The hygienic design of the scale, along with its resistance to our heavy daily washdown and cleaning procedures, made it the obvious choice for us.”

A specially fitted GORE vent membrane allows the scale to cope with the rapid changes in temperature associated with this strict cleaning regime, helping to prevent moisture build-up inside the enclosure. The easy to remove cover also allows for thorough cleaning with limited food trap areas where bacteria could grow.

Dryden concludes, “Our bottom line depends on supplying our distributors with a high quality product. Investing in this type of equipment helps us to achieve that.”

The ZQ375 Checkweigher features food grade, fully stainless steel construction. It is certified by NSF International to the NSF/ANSI Standard 3-A, and has been designed to meet the hygiene requirements of the food processing industry. The ZQ375 checkweigher features a highly visible, low power draw IBN display, which offers ease of viewing in all lighting conditions.

64 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

n the other side of the Atlantic, Swift and Company in Louisville, Kentucky, processes over 1000 pigs per hour. To comply with the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) hygiene requirements, all equipment that the meat touches must withstand thorough cleaning regimes. Swift has over 150 Avery Weigh-Tronix scales and indicators at the plant.

When electronics technician, Todd Kruse, heard about Avery Weigh-Tronix’s NEMA 6-approved check weighers from local distributor, American Scale, he was interested in testing one in the wash down environment. To perform well, it would have to cope with daily jet washing up to 200-psi pressure, cleaning with soapy water up to 170 °F (76.6 °C) and extremes of temperature in the hot and cold rooms.

The check weighers are waterproof by design.

Extensive submersion, heat and expansion tests during its manufacture proved the indicator’s performance beyond ordinary operating conditions.

Just four fasteners hold the front and back housings, and a rubber gasket seals the indicator against the ingress of moisture. Engineers also concealed the gasket to protect it from harmful chemical exposure.

For Swift, the indicator soon proved its suitability. Todd Kruse said, “After eight months, we tested the unit from the cold hog room for moisture ingress. Despite operating continuously in a very cold and wet environment, the inside of the indicator was completely dry.”

Todd continues, “The indicator has stood up to scrutiny from USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) inspectors who visit the plant daily to check our hygiene standards.

We are delighted with the product.”

These check weighers are completely watertight, to ensure continuous operation in the wash down environment. They can be cleaned thoroughly with hot water and detergent to maintain hygiene standards.

The product Swift and Company chose was part of Avery Weigh-Tronix’s range of digital indicators, offering a wide range of interfaces and configurable applications as standard, to provide easy integration without additional costs. www.meatpacking.info

e v en t s

2014 3 - 5 November Animal Welfare Symposium 2014: Humaâ&#x20AC;&#x2039;ne Endings - In Search of Best Practices for the Euthanasia, Humane Slaughter and Depopulation of Animals Illinois, US http://www.avma.org/ 11 - 14 November Food Industry: Safety and Integration Perm, Russia http://pgsha.ru/ 12 - 14 November International Meat, Meat Products & Equipment Exhibition Shanghai, China http://www.chinaexhibition.com 7 - 9 December CRWAD Meeting 2014 Chicago, Illinois, US http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/

2015 27 - 29 January International Production & Processing Expo Atlanta, US www.ippexpo.com 14 - 16 March Food Expo Greece Athens, Greece www.foodexpo.gr 19 - 23 May Meat-Tech Milan, Italy www.meat-tech.it 15 - 18 September Process Expo Chicago, US www.myprocessexpo.com

www.meatpacking.info

November~December 2014 | Meat Packing Journal | 65

C O n t ac t s

reby media Reby House

Rhian Owen

James Chappelow

Alex Conacher

Editorial

Sales

Rhian Owen

Jim Robertson

Editor +44 1442 780 592 rhian@meatpacking.info

James Chappelow

Technical Editor james@meatpacking.info Reporters

Alex Conacher

Ruth Tomlin

Head of Sales +44 1442 780 593 jim@meatpacking.info

Josh Henderson

Accounts Manager +44 1442 780 594 josh@meatpacking.info

Tom Williams

tburnett@meatpacking.info

Business development +44 1442 780 593 tom@meatpacking.info

Jack Young

Ruth Tomlin

alex@meatpacking.info

Tom Burnett

Publisher +44 7817 756 347 jack@meatpacking.info

Subscription Sales +44 1442 780 592 ruth@meatpacking.info

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without the express prior written consent of the publisher.

Meat Packing Journal ISSN 2054-4677 is published bimonthly by Reby Media, 42 Crouchfield, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, HP1 1PA. Subscription records are maintained at Reby Media, 42 Crouchfield, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, HP1 1PA. Meat Packing Journal and its Editorial Board accept no responsibility for the accuracy of statements or opinion given within the Journal that is not the expressly designated opinion of the Journal or its Editorial Board. Those opinions expressed in areas other than editorial comment may not be taken as being the opinion of the Journal or its staff, and the aforementioned accept no responsibility or liability for actions that arise therefrom.

66 | Meat Packing Journal | November~December 2014

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SUBscriptions Meat Packing Journal is a bimonthly magazine mailed every January, March, May, July, September and November. Subscriptions can be purchased for six or 12 issues. Prices for single issue subscriptions or back issues can be obtained by emailing: subscriptions@meatpacking.info

Europe One year: â&#x201A;Ź119, two year: â&#x201A;Ź199 North America One year: $169, two year: $279 Rest of the world One year: $199, two year: $299 The content of Meat Packing Journal is subject to copyright. However, if you would like to obtain copies of an article for marketing purposes high-quality reprints can be supplied to your specification. Please contact the advertising team for full details of this service. Meat Packing Journal is printed at Buxton Press Ltd, Derbyshire, UK.

Editorial advisory board Meat Packing Journal is advised and guided by an editorial advisory board formed of leading professionals and researchers

Jorge Ruiz Carrascal University of Copenhagen Fred W. Pohlman University of Arkansas Ian Richardson University of Bristol Graeme Rolinson Marel

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